


The Assbutt In 3B

by herbivoredinosaur



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Monsters, Childhood Trauma, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Miscommunication, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Castiel (Supernatural), POV Dean Winchester, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:54:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 33,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24235360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbivoredinosaur/pseuds/herbivoredinosaur
Summary: Castiel’s life had turned out ok all things considered. He didn't have much to complain about. Though that was about to change when his current neighbour of two years decided to move out and a ‘for rent’ sign was stuck outside of his apartment building. Cue Dean Winchester.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester
Comments: 20
Kudos: 219





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an adorable, fluffy, heart wrenching tale of two people who have gone through some shit and find love. 
> 
> That's it. 
> 
> Oh, and Gabriel owns a bakery and is a BAMF. Enjoy x

Despite spending the majority of his life cooped up in an orphanage Castiel’s life had turned out ok. The orphanage left much to be desired, between praying, learning and more praying Castiel was just about done with God and all he had to offer. Heaven’s Little Angels (don’t let the name fool you) was about as loving and affectionate as the hellhounds he learned about when he was a kid. Nothing says ‘we care’ more than putting that kind of fear into an 8-year-old. He was just relieved the place didn’t eat his soul completely away, others weren’t as lucky.

When he turned 18 and inherited his parent’s fortune, he packed his one bag and never looked back. That was over 10 ago now.

Well, he never looked back on what he could escape. Gabriel was something he couldn’t escape though if he were to admit it, he would be ok with the fact Gabriel wanted him around. He was exhausting most of the time but Castiel was low on the friend front, having a total of… well one. So, he suffered through Gabriel’s constant need of attention and entertainment. It also meant he got an endless supply of free baked goods.

Sweet as Heaven was Gabriel’s bakery. He claimed the name was a big F you to the orphanage. Irony was always lost on Castiel.

“Every day those dickheads will see that name and regret telling me I was good for nothing.” Castiel remembers Gabriel saying when he decided on the name. Gabriel could bake just about anything that had sugar in it. The lack of sweet things in the orphanage meant Gabriel had years of making up to do. His insatiable sweet tooth now earned him a living as proud owner of the best bakery in town.

Castiel loaned him the money for the deposit on the building and six months’ rent because he has more money than he knows what to do with. Gabriel managed to hand it back and then some despite Castiel assuring him he wasn’t expecting it back. He was glad to help his friend out.

When Castiel wasn’t enjoying trying out Gabriel’s new experiments he was either on campus, lecturing or in his little studio flat grading papers. Something Heaven’s Little Angels managed to instill into him that he didn’t despise was a love for reading. History and English mainly. The only books (other than the bible) they were allowed read had to be factual and somehow in Castiel’s mind he saw them as stories. The stories of people who had lives outside of the walls of the orphanage, conquests and revolutions, wars and salvation. He would hide under his thin bed sheet with his flickering flash light absorbing all he could from the books till one of the nun’s found him. He’d have vivid dreams from his nighttime reading and write on any scrap paper he could find the stories from his imagination.

His love for stories landed him in academia, English lecturer at the ivy league university where he resided. He wasn’t much for socializing or talking but somehow the students kept signing up for his classes. Gabriel put it down to his lack of ability to bullshit and dreamy blue eyes. Whatever the reason was he enjoyed listening to his student’s stories, found them fascinating, windows into their lives. It was like real life history books. Each person came with their own wars and salvations.

So yeah, Castiel’s life had turned out ok. He didn’t have much to complain about all things considered. Though that was about to change when his current neighbor of two years decided to move out and a ‘for rent’ sign was stuck outside of his apartment building.

* * *

It’s a hot morning in September. The heatwave is relentless and Castiel can feel his back sticking to his bed sheets as he tries to bring himself back to sleep. He can’t though, as much as he tries its’ too hot. The idea that global warming is still lost on people baffles him, especially considering it’s been like this for nearly a week now. Rolling over in his bed he checks his alarm clock. Five am. He decides it’s too early to be out of bed on a Sunday, the last Sunday of his break to be exact and squeezes his eyes shut in hopes that will do it.

The windows in his studio apartment are open, they’re tall nearly spanning up to the ceilings and broken so he has to use books to keep them open. His curtains don’t move because there is no wind in this dead heat. It has seeped into every corner of his apartment, the only solace in his bathroom that has no windows. He thinks about having another cold shower, but it seems excessive, he had one before he went to bed. Counting sheep, he attempts that next.

Castiel manages to get to 56 before he hears the sounds of a rumbling car engine getting increasingly louder outside of his window. The engine cuts off, a door opens, and slams shut. Clearly this person has no concept that it’s too early to be making this much noise. It’s quiet for a moment then Castiel can hear the driver on the phone.

_“Hey Sammy, it’s me, your brother, obviously. Anyway, I made it in one piece you’ll be glad to know. Place looks like a dump by the way, thought you said it was vintage? More like run down. I will never be letting you scout out my new place for me ever again. Right, guess I better unpack before Bobby wants me in for work, so I’ll see you later for some major catching up to do.”_

He takes offence to the comment that the building is run down. Castiel has lived here for coming on four years, ok, it could be better, but it could be a whole lot worse. He bets this guy never had to live somewhere where not sleeping next to mold was considered a luxury. The guy, Castiel can only deduce, is going to be his new neighbor by the voicemail he could over hear. From the car being parked under his window Castiel can hear the guy whistling and dropping what he assumes as bags and boxes out from his car.

The urge to peek through his window to get a look at his new neighbor is there but he resists. Castiel refuses to leave his bed this early on a Sunday. He closes his eyes once again in the hopes of going back to sleep. The guy is humming a song loud enough for Castiel to hear. It relaxes him enough to dose off for another couple of hours.

When Castiel manages to get up and open his windows the parking space under his window is empty. He didn’t realise he had slept through the racket of that car leaving. His clock reads 10am. Gabriel has already texted him twice and three missed calls.

**From: Gabriel**

**8:22**

**> >rise and shine Castiel, im a man down, need your help in the bakery. 11am.**

**From: Gabriel**

**10:17**

**> >Castiel! Get your ass over here, NOW.**

Castiel sighs running a hand over his bed head. He really wants to spend the day getting ready for work tomorrow. A new cohort of students to persuade creative writing was worth their time to fill his class quota. The loyalty to Gabriel outweighs his wants though. He shoots Gabriel back a text.

**To: Gabriel**

**10:33**

**< <I’m on my way.**

He showers, shaves and dresses himself in record time.

* * *

Sweet as Heaven is busy on Sundays. Its busy most days. They stay open till they run out of produce to sell, depending on how quick that happens Gabriel might throw together some more pies in the afternoon. Gabriel breathes this place. He even lives above it. The early hours of a baker he put it down to but Castiel knows that Gabriel just feels most at home here than anywhere else.

The queue is as long as the shop. Castiel is at the till taking payments being polite.

“Smile Castiel, would ya? It’s not like it’s gonna to kill ya,” Gabriel says to him nudging his shoulder. He rolls his eyes at his friend and lifts his mouth to the biggest fakest smile he can manage. “Never mind, you’re going to scare off the customers.”

He takes payment for a chocolate swirled brioche loaf and half a dozen caramel apple filled croissants. Gabriel deals with the customers, he’s entertaining and energetic. They all love him, laugh at his jokes and give in when he suggests they buy something else. He hands out free samples to the kids too and flirts with the parents. Castiel enjoys the show too much that he misses a customer talking to him.

“Hey dude, can I pay for this?” the customer asks. He’s tall, very tall with long brown hair tucked behind his ears and two pies in his hands holding them out to Castiel to pay for.

“Apologies,” Castiel replies taking the pies from his hands. He opens them to check what kind of pies they are. Gabriel presses an indent of the fruit inside the pies onto the pastry crust. “Two cherry?” he checks. The customer nods.

“Yeah, they’re my brother’s favourite.”

He assumes the customer wants to do small talk. Castiel doesn’t do small talk so pretends to not hear the comment over the hustle and bustle of the bakery and places the pies gently into a paper carrier bag and seals them with a sticker. The guy hands him a ten-dollar bill. He corrects him, assuming the guy is used to the prices at another bakery. Gabriel charges more for better ingredients.

“That’ll be twelve dollars.”

“Woah, woah there my sweet compadre,” Gabriel swoops in beside Castiel. “This is Sam, one of my best customers.”

The customer, Sam scratches the back of his neck and blushes a little under his collar. Castiel would rather not be in the middle of this flirting game that Gabriel insists on doing with just about anyone who was attractive and of legal age. Sam looks barely 21.

“Gabriel, honestly its fine I don’t mind paying full price.” He fumbles with his wallet to get out the other two dollars.

“That’s not the point cutie, point is you don’t have to,” Gabriel winks. “Besides don’t want you going three blocks down to Sinful Sugar,” the rival bakery. They continue with a back and forth casual flirting with Sam insisting he would never go there and Gabriel confessing it would break his heart if he ever did that the line was being ignored and growing. Eventually, Gabriel puts it down as two apple pies on the till bringing the total to ten dollars.

Castiel takes the money from Sam and wishes him a good day. He glances over to the amount of product left on the shelves and in the display unit. At a rough estimation he has another hour of this before he can retire to his apartment for the rest of the day.

* * *

As payment Gabriel gives Castiel a box of broken assorted cookies. He doesn’t mind, they still taste delicious just not as appealing for customers. The rest of his afternoon and evening is spent ironing his shirts for the week, re-arranging his presentation to the new cohort of students and planning out his week’s assignments for his seminar groups.

When the sun comes down, he’s sitting with the box of cookies in his lap debating which one to try first and music starts playing from next door. Loud music, loud enough that Castiel can hear the lyrics through the walls.

_Hey, hey mama said the way you move gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove._

He sighs, heavily, twice. It’s his new neighbor. The one he has yet to see though knows the sound his deep husked voice from this morning and his ability to carry a humming tune enough for Castiel to dose off to. Appropriate noise levels appear to be something he never learnt growing up.

_Ah ah child way ya shake that thing, gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting._

Castiel checks his phone. 8pm. Ok, so not too late for Castiel to be this annoyed at him. He has yet to even see the guy and he’s already annoying. The building had been quiet for the last four years, apart from one six-month period when drug dealers lived downstairs and the place had to raided. Other than that, the only interaction he’s had with his neighbors is when he’s checking mail, in the lift or doing laundry in the basement and even then, it’s a few words at most. This guy isn’t even a day living here and he’s disturbed Castiel’s sleep and precious cookie eating time.

_Hey, hey baby when you walk that way watch your honey drip, I can’t keep away._

He debates telling the guy to turn down the music. That would involve getting up, more importantly that would involve talking to a _stranger._ Castiel has done enough of talking to strangers for one day. Deciding to grab his headphones, play an old audiobook of his to help drown out the music, it works. He eats the cookies and gives himself a food coma from it. Just about managing to crawl into his bed across the room and drifting off to sleep.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

It’s not as weird being back in his home town as he thought it would be. Dean had spent the better part of the last five years avoiding it like the plague only coming home for Sammy’s birthday and the holidays. Now he was back, moved into his own place, working the same two jobs he did growing up and it feels like he never left.

He found it tough when his Dad died. John Winchester was his idol and without him he didn’t really know who he was, so he bolted in search of something. It took him five years to realise what he was looking for was right back where he started. Don’t get him wrong, living on the road had its perks, the people, the driving, the scenery, the lack of responsibility was great. It was what he needed.

Sammy was set, all of their Dad’s inheritance (Dean gave his half to his little brother) and his scholarship meant that Dean didn’t have to worry about him anymore. He didn’t have to worry about his baby brother, and he didn’t have to worry about his Father, so he didn’t really know who he was. Identity crisis at the ripe age of 25. Now he was coming up to 30, he needed to re-evaluate his life or whatever that kid Garth had told him over a couple of beers on the other side of the country.

_“Sure, its’ nice being needed but it’s even nicer just being wanted.”_ The words ringing in his mind still. He had been so used to be needed, his Dad needed him, Sam needed him, Bobby and Ellen, they needed him. It never occurred to him that maybe they just wanted him around too. That he was more than what he did for them. So, he called up Sam, asked him to find him a place dirt cheap. Called Bobby asking for his job back at the auto-shop and called Ellen asking for his job back at the Roadhouse too. That was two weeks ago now.

His studio apartment was bigger than his car, he’ll give it that and bigger than most of the motel rooms he slept in over the years. The windows were big, brought in a lot of light. His kitchen was operational, one of the counters had stools underneath to function as a table. The furniture the old tenant left wasn’t all that bad either just needed some rearranging. He never had a place of his own, so he was making the most of it. Dean needed his bed by the window and his sofa between the bed and the kitchen to distinguish the areas. Cooking, chilling and sleeping, done. He bought a stereo system his first day back in the thrift store and brought up some of his tapes from Baby (his car) to play.

During the week he worked at the auto-shop with Bobby, nothing changed there. Bobby still as grumpy as ever. Some nights he’d take a shift at the Roadhouse too though mostly he worked there Friday and Saturday when business picked up. The ivy league kids loved the place. A run-down dive of a bar was ‘hipster’ apparently. Last time Dean worked there it was full of old vets and alcoholics, now he was serving up more shots of tequila than ever before. Some girl asked him for a slippery nipple one of the nights and he handed her a cold beer instead.

Bobby even managed to get himself another employee while he was away, Benny. Dean was surprised he had stuck around for coming on a year. People didn’t last in Singer’s Auto-shop, either fed up with Bobby being Bobby or Bobby sacking them just because he could. Benny was a smooth talker from Louisiana paid off the books. They got on like a house on fire, Dean might even dare to say they were close to being friends at this stage.

On his days off he’d be chilling in his dingy apartment. Sam was still at college, graduating next year and didn’t have much time for his big brother anymore. It was cool, Dean got it. They couldn’t spend every waking moment with each other. He got to see Sam once, twice a week max. He kept himself busy, between the two jobs, one day socializing and the other day relaxing Dean was set. His life was how he wanted it to be, no complaints here.

Though, that was about to change while grabbing his post downstairs after a shift at Bobby’s.

* * *

The heatwave finally dies down. Dean was just about done with the sun and all it has to offer. Fixing up cars in that heat was unfair. A normal September day rolls in and he manages most of the day without wrapping the top half of his overalls around his waist. In a rush to get home and change for his shift at the Roadhouse, Dean keeps his overalls on, the sleeves tied in the front. His face and arms have oil smudges on them, and his hands are a mess but fuck it, it wasn’t like he is going to be running into anyone. His apartment building is a ghost town.

He’s checking his post box with one hand and using his other to talk to Sam on the phone.

“Sammy, I told you already, just keep with the puppy dog eyes and eventually you’ll get that sucker down to only asking for five dollars.”

_“I’m not doing anything with my eyes!”_

He likes messing with his brother. A daily duty he feels obliged to fulfil. The sound of Sam’s voice lets him know he’s rattled him enough for one day.

The tiny box eventually opens. He spies a postcard and two boring white letters most likely bills that need paying. Dean does not miss paying bills. Perk to being on the road.

“Whatever you say little brother. I gotta go. I’m an oiled-up mess and need to shower or else Ellen will spray me down out back before letting me serve customers, catch you later.”

_“Jerk.”_

“Bitch.”

As he turns to head to the lift a guy is standing behind him who wasn’t there when Dean came in not moments ago. It catches him off guard. He jumps out of his skin.

“Jesus Christ man you scared the crap out of me!” Dean grips to where his heart is. The guy is looking at him like he’s never seen another human being before. It makes Dean feel he’s an animal in a zoo or something. And while he’s at it since when could eyes be that blue?

“That was not my intention.” The guy replies calmly. Dean scoffs a laugh.

“No shit.”

“Does most of your vocabulary involve feces?”

“What?” that catches Dean off guard yet again. The guy tilts his head the slightest then his eyes move over Dean’s body like he isn’t even trying to be subtle about it. Now Dean really feels like an animal. He can feel the back of his neck heating up because it isn’t every day some suit and tie trench coat wearing man checks Dean out like that. He’s used to truckers, waitresses, you know, people like him. People like this guy do not check out people like him.

It makes him re-think that he isn’t checking Dean out, maybe he’s just appalled by how dirty he looks, not to mention the smell of fumes and sweat coming off of him. Sure, the guys top button is undone, and his tie is loosened a bit, his dark hair looks like his hands or someone’s hands have been running through it, but he isn’t covered in oil. This guy probably thinks he’s better than Dean. Stuck up asshole.

“I said…”

“I heard what you said,” Dean interrupts. The guy is still standing in front of him unmoving.

The hall is big enough for Dean to move past him but he kind of doesn’t wanna, not yet. He knows he needs to get showered and changed. And yet this guy went from kinda cute to obnoxious in about two seconds flat and everyone says Dean’s got an attitude problem so why not use it. He crosses his arm flaring out his chest a bit.

“Can I help you with something or are you just gonna stare at me all evening?”

The guy’s eyes widen at the remark. He can see the tops of his ears pinking. Dean can’t help but smirk, sucking part of his cheek between his teeth. If this guy enjoys catching people out, he challenged the wrong dude. Trench coat stiffens himself up. He wasn’t as tall as Dean but not far off of it when he pulled his shoulder back.

“I need to get to my post box. You’re in the way.” His eyes move behind Dean to the post boxes behind him. Well that response just makes Dean feel like an idiot. The guy just needed to get to his post, not intimidate Dean. He moves out of the way and lets the guy get to his mail. He clocks him opening 3C.

“You’re my neighbor!” Dean says a little too enthusiastically and loud. The guy grabs his post and turns back around.

“Yes.” Is all he gets in return, completely lacking in any enthusiasm. Does this guy know any other tone other than mono? The guy walks over to the lift, Dean follows because well he was going that way anyway. They live on the same floor.

The lift is small, three people max could fit in or two Sam’s if you’re being technical. He presses 3 and the doors close. Him and the guy ride the lift in silence. It’s awkward, super awkward, like being in the dentist waiting room and your phone battery dies awkward. Dean wants to talk to the guy, he’s chatty, he doesn’t do well in silences, but something tells him this guy aint so chatty. Or maybe aint so chatty to people like Dean. Dick.

He knows the guy a total of five minutes and he’s rubbing Dean up the wrong way. Great, now he’s thinking about rubbing up on the guy in a good way because Dean’s brain likes to work in mysterious ways. The guy is good looking, no point denying that. He has the whole dark and brooding down to a fine art. Dean likes a challenge, this guy might be his if he could get that stick from the guy’s ass. Great, now he’s thinking about the guy’s ass. Its hidden under the trench coat, Dean already checked as he walked ahead of him downstairs.

When the lift doors open the guy walks out first. Dean stays behind him and then passes him to get to his door a few feet down. They both rummage for their keys with their free hand, their post in the other. The guy gets his out first. Dean has too many pockets in his overalls.

“I’m Dean by the way.” He calls out before the guy steps inside of his flat. The guy pauses and turns his head towards Dean. He drags his eyes over Dean one more time. Seriously, what is with this guy and staring? It’s like he doesn’t understand social ques.

“Castiel.” Wow, what a name. Before Dean says anything else the guy is in his flat with the door closed behind him. What an asshole. A stupidly attractive asshole but an asshole non the less. Dean sighs, eventually finds his keys and makes it to the Roadhouse just on time for rush hour.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

Its late on Sunday before Castiel manages to go down to the basement to do his laundry. He’s back at college meaning he’s back to the relentless demand of students and faculty members bombarding him with emails that need replying to. He regrets offering to be a supervisor to the final year student’s papers. Offering being a stretch, Naomi had ambushed him. His usual mid-week routine of sitting in the laundry room with a good book is gone. He has a bunch of papers from his overly eager first years in his creative writing seminar to read through.

When he gets to the basement, he hears humming from the laundry room. Its Dean, his neighbor. That humming is hard to forget especially as Dean continues to park under his window and Castiel can hear it in the mornings as Dean leaves for work and late at night when Dean returns home from where ever he’s been. He debates going back upstairs and doing this another day. He’s running low on shirts though.

The other day had thrown Castiel when he finally got to lay eyes on his neighbor. Too many eyes from what Dean had asked him. Gabriel did warn him he had a problem with staring. It’s just he hadn’t expected his neighbor to look like what Dean looked like. He had this image of an older guy, purely basing that off of the music tastes and old car with a beer belly, maybe a car sales man or something with coffee stains on his shirt and a receding hairline.

There were stains alright, oil stains smeared on parts of Dean’s face, his neck, his arms. Stains on a body that was about as far removed from his imagination as he could get. He was about Castiel’s age, a mechanic, good with his hands probably and Castiel was struck with how fast his body reacted to him. It was like being a teenager all over again. His brain just shooting off too many images for him to keep up that he needed to get away from Dean and then he _follows_ Castiel into the lift. That tiny lift where he could feel the heat of Dean’s body close to his, smell the fumes from his work and Castiel can’t even remember the last time someone made him feel like that, if ever.

He shakes those thoughts out of his mind, for now and walks into the laundry room. Dean is dressed differently, dark jeans, boots with a flannelled shirt on. The oil smears on his arms are long gone. His back is to Castiel again. He attempts not to scare Dean again by saying hello. It doesn’t work.

“Hello Dean.”

Dean jumps up from where he’s standing and lets out what can only be described as a yelp.

“Jesus Cas,” He gasps. “You gotta stop doing that.” Castiel debates telling him his name is Castiel, not Cas but he doesn’t. It sounds nice the way Dean says it. Others had attempted to call him Cas in the past and were unsuccessful. Someone at the orphanage tried to make Cassie a thing, it lasted a day. Dean’s got his clothes in his hands looking at Castiel like a deer in headlights. He realises he’s doing the staring thing again and moves to a free washing machine. The less he stares at Dean, the better.

He loads his whites in one, shirts mainly and his darks in the other. When they’re both on he slides down to the ground and takes out the papers to read. Dean is still there, sitting on top of a free machine dangling his legs out of the corner of Castiel’s eye. The urge to look at him is there, his strong jaw lined with stubble and lips he makes a point of constantly wetting like he isn’t aware he’s even doing it. No, papers, he needs to read these papers.

It takes Dean two minutes to break the silence.

“Watcha reading?” he asks like a child needing attention.

“Papers.” Castiel replies. Do not look up, don’t do it. He’s hoping the short answers will let Dean know he doesn’t want to talk.

“Yours?” it doesn’t work. He sighs, putting the paper in his lap to lift his head up to Dean who’s leaning over as far as he can to get a look at them.

“My students.”

Apparently, that’s an invite for Dean to get off of the machine and join Castiel on the ground. He bends one of his knees and rests his elbow on it. The other stretched out alongside Castiel’s. They’re not touching but its close. Castiel runs on cold and he can feel that warmth again off of Dean.

“You a teacher or somethin’.” Dean reaches for a paper on Castiel’s lap. This guy is incapable of sitting still and minding his own business. He’s like another Gabriel.

“Or something.” Castiel snatches the paper back. “You can’t read them.”

“Alright, my bad didn’t realise they were top secret.” He puts his hands up like he’s been caught by the police. He smells cleaner than last time, the lack of fumes and sweat. Castiel gives himself the indulgence of looking at Dean from this close up.

His eyes are green, not one shade like Castiel’s blue but a spectrum of forest colours all rolled into one iris with the tiniest sliver of amber close to his pupil. Castiel could write a short story on what he thinks about when he looks at them. He thinks of the first day of spring, lush fields, new life, flowers blooming. Dean coughs before he gets any further with his imagination and takes his eyes away.

“You even listening to me Cas?” Oh, Dean was saying something.

“No.” Castiel admits. He smooths out the paper he crumbled by snatching it from Dean’s hands. Hopefully the student will assume Castiel spent more time on it than the others and not that he was trying to seize it back from his neighbor and his slightly calloused hands.

“You’re a bit of a dick, you know that.” Dean says. It’s not a question, no infliction in his tone. He’s upset Dean, somehow. The talking needs to stop, Castiel really needs to read these papers. He hands Dean one he’s already marked in hopes that will work. It earns him a warm smile.

“Here, now _please_ be quiet.” Dean takes the paper, careful about their hands not to touch like earlier. He settles himself better beside Castiel, drops his other knee and crosses his legs. Their body language now mirrored.

“Yes, sir.” He hears Dean mutter. They read in silence while Castiel tries to get his blushing under control. He knows his ears always give him away. Dean calling him sir was not helping with his concentration. They swap papers when Castiel finishes marking them and they get the lift back up to their floor when they’re laundry is done. Its somewhat amicable.

* * *

Midweek and Dean never passes up an opportunity for a party. He’s invited some people round to his place, mainly Roadhouse staff, Benny and Sam with his girlfriend Jess. They’ve been sweethearts since first year and still going strong. He’s happy for his little brother, makes him proud knowing Sam’s got his life together and content with where it’s going. Jess is the best too. She looks all sunshine and rainbows, but she can take the heat with the rest of them.

“You got anymore beers my friend?” Benny asks. He’s leaning against the wall chatting to Ash about the possibility of getting his record erased from some database. Dean did wonder why Bobby paid him off the books, now he knows why.

“Yeah, don’t you move I’ll get it. Ash you want one too?”

“I wouldn’t say no.” Ash replies downing the rest of the beer in his hand. He scrambles himself off the couch where he was sitting with Jo and heads to the fridge. The only thing in it being beer and more beer. He rarely cooks in his place too busy working and coming back late at night with take out from various places around town. Manual labour keeps him in shape.

He hands Ash and Benny cold beers. They clink bottles and continue chatting. Dean stays with him for a bit. Jo, in his eyes his little cousin, in her eyes something more. He doesn’t have the heart to tell her he’s not interested. She’d clam up and punch him in the arm or something for even assuming she likes him in that way and never speak to him again which he doesn’t want. He’s waiting for the day someone else comes into her life and sweeps her off her feet like she deserves. Till that day, he plays it safe, pretends to be oblivious to her advances.

“I mean I could do it, but I aint cheap.” Ash tells Benny. Dean scoffs.

“Ash, you’re about as cheap as that haircut.” He grips his hand onto his friend’s shoulder.

“The ladies love the hair man.” Ash runs his hand through his mullet. It hadn’t changed in the twenty odd years Dean knew him. Their Dads were regulars at the Roadhouse. They’d sit in a booth in the corner doing their homework together and figure out ways to prank Sam. His Mom was a lover of the 80’s and when she died, he vowed to never change it. So yeah, everyone else thought it was for the ladies. Dean knew it was just for one particular lady.

You Really Got Me by Van Halen comes on his stereo. He sees Jess leap up from the edge of his bed where she’s sitting with, correction, where she’s on top of Sam. His brother is getting more action on his bed than he has yet, it’s not fair. She turns it up loud, about as loud as his stereo can go.

_Girl you really got me now, you got me, so I don’t know what I’m doin’_

Dean wants to tell them to turn it down, that’s it’s a Wednesday and coming up close to midnight. He does, he really does then everyone starts singing along to the chorus and he can’t help himself joining along. He’s happy, he’s buzzed and it’s a great song to sing to.

_You really got me, you really got me._

“You really got me!” they all shout.

There’s a banging on the door. Dean gives Benny his beer to hold while he goes to answer it. Must be the pizza he ordered, who else would be looking for him? He swings the door open.

“Took your…” he was about to say then he sees its Cas. A very unimpressed Cas wearing a loose white t-shirt and soft black sweats. Cas is in his pajamas and Dean can’t help to take the opportunity to look at Cas’s exposed collarbone now he is in something other than a button-down shirt on. He has faintest tan line from his neck to his chest. Dean did wonder if Cas was naturally sallow or just from the sun. His body is lean, leaner than Dean had expected for someone who’s job involved a suit and tie. Buzzed Dean has no inhibitions. He notices his mouth is open, possibly salivating over the thought of sucking a bruise into that collarbone. He closes it sharpish.

“You’re not the pizza guy.” He says trying to recover. Cas gets close to him, real close.

“Listen here assbut,” he pokes Dean in the chest, hard. Did he just call Dean an assbut? He can tell he’s angry. His voice is deeper however humanly possible. “almost every night since you’ve moved in here, I’ve had to suffer through your incessant music. Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Cas, c’mon its Van Halen.” He tries to reason with his neighbor. There is that little part of his brain that enjoys seeing Cas riled up. It’s making his eyes looked crazed, his hair is messy probably from pulling at it. Dean wants to pull at it. These weren’t helpful thoughts. Cas is pissed at him, really pissed. Before Cas manages to respond Jess shouts over the music.

“Professor Novak?”

Dean watches Cas’s face drop. It’s one of his students. Jess is one of his students and he’s standing there in his pajamas. Dean’s face splits from smiling so hard. This is priceless.

“Turn it down Dean.” is all he says before marching back to his room. Dean leans out into the hallway and gives Cas an exaggerated salute.

“Will do _Professor_.”

He catches Cas stumble to unlock his door. They turn down the music and Dean has to resist the urge to get Jess to tell him everything on Professor Novak.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm debating changing the rating to Mature but what constitutes as Mature and not Explicit? All my other fics have been pretty explicit but this one is less on the raunchy scale. What would you count as Mature and Explicit?


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

Castiel narrowly manages to avoid Jessica for the rest of the week. By some near miracle he teaches her on Mondays, seminar Tuesdays and had his supervisory meeting with her that Wednesday afternoon. She’s one of his final year students, he can’t escape her forever. He can’t escape Dean either. The guy is everywhere. He now waits till he can hear Dean leave his flat before trying to get out.

It was 8pm one evening by the time Castiel was able to grab his dinner from his favourite diner. The waiter thought Castiel wasn’t going to show up, he never eats his dinner this late.

The only safe haven he has is the bakery where he hides out on Saturday eating more cookies than he has sense. Gabriel and Kevin are busy serving customers out front, Castiel hides in the back reading his book and enjoying his broken dark chocolate chip cookies.

Kevin hears what had happened through Gabriel because Gabriel doesn’t understand that when Castiel says it was “one of the most embarrassing moments of his life” it means he didn’t want other people to know. Kevin, a second-year student at the college but not in his classes (Kevin was in theology and math) took pity on him and accidently drops a tray of dark chocolate chip cookies. They just so happen to be Castiel’s favourite.

“That’s coming out of your wages Kev!” Gabriel tells him. Kevin shrugs and slides the tray over to Castiel to eat. He likes Kevin. He has his book, cup of coffee, his cookies, and is hiding from all things Dean. That doesn’t seem to stop him thinking about how he his neighbor happens to be equal parts immature, beautiful, charming and insufferable.

The way his eyes crinkled at the sides when he pieced together that Jess was one of Castiel’s students, how he looked so relaxed around his friends and swayed his hips slightly holding the door up for support. How he knew how to press Castiel’s buttons already having only met him a total of three times including their confrontation at his front door. He’s playful, borderline childish at times and Castiel refuses to find it endearing.

He doesn’t even know if Dean is attracted men. Castiel thinks probably not, Dean’s a mechanic then he feels guilty for having such stereotypical hetero thoughts considering he himself is gay. It wasn’t like people go around with it written on their lapels what they are into. It’s hard to gauge, especially for Castiel. He’s not good with people in real life. Books, stories, words he can relate to people there. Outside of those pages he seems far removed from them. His sheltered up bringing he attempted to blame for it. Gabriel ruined that hypothesis. He could understand people like he understood sugar.

It’s not like Castiel would even know what to do with that kind of information on Dean. He isn’t shall he say, experienced in dating having been on a total of zero dates. A blur of hookups through college when he found freedom didn’t leave much of a memory on him either. Dean looks like he knows how to date, how to flirt, how to kiss, how to use his hands in all the ways Castiel likes to imagine ever since seeing him in his overalls that day. He would have risked ruining his white shirt for those hands on him.

“Castiel!” Gabriel shouts at him pulling him from his daydreaming.

“Gabriel.” Castiel replies flicking over the page on his book as if he read it.

“I’ve known you my whole life Castiel, you really think I don’t know you were off in some fantasy land?” his friend pulls up a stool. Gabriel’s got his Sweet as Heaven apron on, it’s deep blue, covered in flour and has a little gold halo above the last E in heaven.

Gabriel takes a swig of his coffee and grimaces on the bitterness of it.

“I don’t have sugar in my coffee.” Castiel reminds him.

“I forgot.”

“I thought you said you’ve known me my whole life.” Castiel takes the mug off of Gabriel. It has gone cold now, too much time spent day dreaming.

“Oh, he’s got jokes ladies and gentlemen,” Gabriel looks around pretending there is an audience. Castiel wasn’t attempting to be funny. When he tries, he fails, when he doesn’t try, he succeeds. Gabriel grabs a cookie and grimaces at that too. He isn’t a fan of dark chocolate, again not enough sugar in it for him.

“Don’t you have customers to serve?”

“Kevin is manning the fort for me,” he says. He looks like he’s waiting for Castiel to say something, nothing comes out. “Last time you came to me to hide from the world we were back in that hellhole and Lucifer was trying to burn your stories.”

He remembers it well. Lucifer had found his stash of stories under his mattress. He fought what he could off of him and ran to the other side of the room where Gabriel’s bed was. Gabriel squared up to Lucifer, it got him a black eye. Castiel felt so guilty about it even if Gabriel insisted it was worth it if it meant Castiel got to keep his stories. He got the last laugh though when he covered Lucifer’s bed in worms. Gabriel loved playing tricks.

“Why the trip down memory lane Gabriel?” he questions.

“Who’s trying to burn your stories this time?”

“I told you, my student…”

“Yeah, yeah I heard that story but this,” he waves his hands over Castiel. “This is more than a student seeing you in your pajamas so what gives? Your boss giving you trouble again?”

Castiel is lost on what to say. His neighbor is confusing him. No, he knows what he feels. If anything, he feels too much. Dean isn’t simple, he’s contradictions that Castiel can’t pin point. He knows every protagonist, antagonist there is, where does Dean fit? He’s a kaleidoscope or a shifting tide or any number of metaphors Castiel can conjure up to explain what Dean is and it still wouldn’t do him justice.

When he slams his car-door shut and plays loud music and grabs at things that aren’t his Castiel wants to curse and pull his hair out. When he smiles, runs his hand over his jawline and gets close enough to Castiel he can feel his skin stand on edge he wants to curse and pull his hair out for entirely different reasons.

How can he say that to Gabriel without sounding like a crazy person? He doesn’t.

“Yes, Naomi, she is still micro-managing me.” he lies. Gabriel puts his hand on Castiel’s knee. He looks around the empty kitchen before leaning in to him.

“You want me to put worms in her bed?” Gabriel suggests quietly. It makes Castiel smile.

“I am content hiding for the time being, if I require anything more, I will ask.” Gabriel goes back to the front. His friends floured hand leaves a mark on his knee. He would be lost without him, so he leaves it there enjoying the symbolism of it.

Castiel makes another coffee, no sugar and reads his book till the place is sold out.

When he gets home, he notices a familiar brown box outside his door. It’s from Sweet as Heaven with a note on it saying, _“sorry, from the assbut in 3B”._

* * *

Dean regrets the pie. Cas might not even like pie then again, who doesn’t love pie? Pie is an American staple, its pastry and sugary tangy filling and as the bakery name says sweet as heaven. He couldn’t shake the guilt of blaring his music loudly, Cas having to embarrass himself in front of his student and Dean doing nothing to help the poor bastard out. If anything, Dean made it worse calling him professor even if he meant it has a flirty joke.

Christ, he didn’t even know if he should be flirting with Cas. He knew pretty much next to nothing about the guy. What he did know is he felt like a dickhead the rest of the week. Between his two jobs starting too early and ending too late and Cas’s normal person work schedule he never got to see him to apologies. He needed to do something to sort the guilt out before he ate him alive, so pie.

He went for apple. Cas looks like a guy who didn’t have much of a super sweet tooth, probably preferred not to mess with classics, like Dean. Cherry was his first choice (obviously) but his gut told him apple. It was coming up to the afternoon and he had heard nothing from Cas’ flat. How long did that guy sleep in for? Dean was not standing by his door for the guts of an hour waiting, nope. He gave up when he had to eventually take a piss.

Of course, that is when someone knocks on his door. Dean sprints to the door to open it. Standing there is Cas holding said pie in his hands and Deal realises he didn’t think this idea through.

“You got me a pie?” Cas asks ignoring formalities of greeting. Dean steadies his hand on the door trying not to give away the nerves he was experiencing. He didn’t get nervous, Dean is smooth dammit, people get nervous around him, not the other way around. Cool and collected is Dean’s natural body stance and Cas is ruining all of his years of mastering it.

Cas’ in casual clothes, a fitted blue top like his eyes and equally fitted black chinos. He doesn’t know which he preferred, the suit, the pajamas, the casual attire, all of them fill Dean’s mind with ways of taking them off. He’s glad Cas is looking at the pie, gives him a chance to fully appreciate the way the top tightens around his upper arms.

Right, the pie, the guilt, the apology. He shakes his head regaining himself.

“Yeah I wanted to say sorry you know for Wednesday when I…” Dean trails off. He’s not good with words, meaningful words anyway.

“Was an inconsiderate asshole.” Cas finishes for him. Cas is still looking at the pie, not him. He spent most of the time feeling uneasy around the blue eye stare and now he misses them.

“Assbut I think you called me.” Dean points to the note. “Never been called an assbut before.” That gets Cas to look up at him. The pink on the tops of his ears starting to appear.

“What have you been called?”

What a line. It’s like Cas lined it up for him on purpose. He scratches his jaw contemplating his answer. He also likes how Cas’ eyes follow his hands sometimes when they’re in his view.

“Handsome, good looking, sexy,” He can see the pink getting brighter on Cas’ ears, can see it come up the side of his neck. Is he making Cas uncomfortable or flustered? It was hard to tell. He keeps going anyway. “Oh, and I think some dude called me smokin’ once.” He finishes with a smirk.

Cas sighs heavily. That shouldn’t have created the reaction in Dean’s jeans that it did.

“You’re insufferable.” Ouch, that hurt. Dean stiffens up, hand ready to close the door. He said sorry, he got the guy a pie for crying out loud what more does he want? Dean begging for forgiveness over playing his music too loud. Fat chance. It’s like no matter what Dean tries he’s never going to be good enough, he knows that experience all too well.

“Alright Cas I get it, I’m annoying, a pain in the ass, whatever. I got enough of that from my Dad when he was alive, so you know what? Fuck you.” He slams the door in Cas’s face.

He made a vow to himself when he got back here, he wasn’t going to take anymore unsolicited shit from people. Cas and his blue eyes included.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

Castiel couldn’t even stomach half a slice of the apple pie after that. He loves apple pie, his favourite and the taste of it was all wrong. Castiel didn’t need Gabriel to explain to him that he had upset Dean. The door being slammed in his face was explanation enough along with the venomous “Fuck you.” he got.

He wasn’t trying to be insulting. The apple pie still slightly warm from the bakery he had just spent the morning in. Gabriel’s bakery. Dean bought the pie while Castiel was in the back day dreaming about what his body would feel like on top of his. He was having those thoughts while Dean was picking out which pie to get Castiel to say sorry for what happened on Wednesday.

Castiel was stunned, too many thoughts and emotions running through his mind to really comprehend what he was saying. On top of that Dean had to go and call himself handsome, smoking, _sexy_ , the roll of that word off of his lips was sinful. It threw Castiel, threw him so much that he called him insufferable but not in the context that Dean took it. He didn’t have time to explain himself before the door was shut. Insufferable as in impossible, unbearable to be around because Castiel didn’t know what to do with himself when Dean was around him. All is usual ways of talking to people didn’t work, he couldn’t keep his emotions in check, he felt like he was spilling them out everywhere for Dean to see.

Dean keeps his distance after that. He brushes past Castiel in the hall, takes the stairs instead of the lift even if Castiel is in it. He even see’s Castiel in the basement doing his laundry and turns right around to go back upstairs. His jaw and shoulders never looked tighter to Castiel. The relaxed and happy Dean is gone and Castiel misses him. This Dean is angry or at least when Castiel is around him. Castiel tries not to pay much attention to the fact that Dean still keeps his music down in the evenings.

This lasts about three weeks before Castiel decides he needs to be brave and do something about it. On his calendar is a meeting with Jessica and he takes the opportunity to bring up Dean. She never brings up that night, Castiel appreciates it. He is going to have to in order to figure out how to get past the concrete wall that was Dean’s anger. She knocks on his office door.

“Professor Novak?”

“Come in Jessica.” He stands up from behind his desk. She comes in, bag on her shoulder, blonde hair tied back off her face. Jessica sits on the chair opposite him about to take out her notebook to listen to the notes Castiel has made on part of her draft. She knows he isn’t one for idle chat, likes to get to the point of the meeting and not waste time. This time was going to be different, awkward, for both of them.

“I would like to talk to you about something, about someone, my neighbor.” He stutters out ineloquently. Even talking about Dean makes him flustered. Jessica snaps her head up to him and crosses and uncrosses her legs. She wasn’t expecting this.

“You want to talk about Dean?” she asks. He nods.

“I seem to have upset him and would like some advice on how to rectify it.” He admits. Jessica smiles at that. It puts Castiel on edge. He didn’t like crossing over professional boundaries. He likes his students as they are, students. The gap between them keeps Castiel focused on their work, not on their persons. He only wants to know them through their stories.

“It takes a lot to piss off Dean, what did you do key his baby?”

“Baby?” Castiel tilts his head in confusion. Jessica giggles.

“His car, he calls his car Baby.” She clarifies. There is a silence between them. Jessica smooths out her dress on her legs. “Sorry professor, I’m just not used to us talking about things not related to my work.”

“I can assure you, once I know how to make it up to Dean we can go back to our usual meetings.” Castiel clarifies. Jessica nods hearing him. She thinks on it, eyes scattering around Castiel’s office. It’s not big, or lavish. A simple wooden desk, computer, pens in a mug with the old college emblem on it from when he was a student there, scraps of paper in an old shoe box and a wall of books, papers and folders. The only pictures on the walls are his degrees. Four of them lined up in row.

“Can I text someone? It’s not Dean don’t worry.” She says. Castiel nods. Jessica takes out her phone to communicate with someone. Castiel waits patiently. It doesn’t take long for a response to come in.

“Sam, you beautiful genius,” She mutters to the phone before putting it back in her dress pocket. “Okay I got it. You’re going to need to write this down.” She smiles and leans forward ready to relay the information. Castiel grabs one and a scrap of paper. He listens attentively to her instructions, the smile on his face growing as she writes. He could do this.

* * *

Castiel has everything ready. He followed Jessica’s instructions to the last letter. It’s all laid out on his little table in his flat. Dean just needs to be at home, which Jessica assured he would be giving it’s a Wednesday and Dean didn’t work at the Roadhouse on Wednesdays. The Roadhouse being Dean’s other job, hence the late nights coming home. He runs his hands through his hair double checking it once more before going to get Dean.

Cold beers, double cheese and bacon burger, chili cheese fries, Cajun onion rings and one special ordered cherry pie with extra crust from Sweet as Heaven. Castiel owes Gabriel a Saturday shift for making him bake a pie in the afternoon. Castiel hopes it’s worth it. He goes to grab Dean before it gets cold or more precisely before he gets cold feet and backs out of it.

Dean answers after the third rounds of knocks.

“What?” he asks. He’s still angry. Castiel runs a hand through his hair again trying to remain composed enough to pull this off.

“I would like us to have dinner together.” He says. Dean’s eyes widen at that.

“Come again?”

“I said…” he’s about to repeat himself, maybe he wasn’t clear enough.

“I heard what you said Cas,” Dean snaps. “Why would I want to have dinner with you?”

Castiel steps back, gesturing to his apartment. Jessica told him not to give his cards away too soon. Dean can’t help himself to take bait apparently. Dean doesn’t move.

“It’s going to get cold Dean. Do you want cold onion rings?”

“Are they Cajun?”

“Maybe.” He lets a small smile out careful not to give straight answers even if straight answers were Castiel’s default. Dean sighs and grabs his keys for his front door. Castiel walks back to his opened apartment door with Dean in tow. Step one, getting Dean out of his apartment and into his, complete.

They eat in silence. It’s not widely uncomfortable, a little awkward when they both reach for the onion rings or chili cheese fries. Jessica had warned Castiel not to try to talk to Dean until he had finished eating.

_“Do not try to communicate with a hungry pissed off Dean.”_ were her exact words.

If he could get one of those adjectives down, the one of hunger he hopes Dean will let him talk. Dean wipes his face with the napkin the diner supplied to Castiel and takes a swig of his beer. It’s hard not to notice the way his lips seal around the bottom, how his throat gulps tensing the muscles there. Castiel needs to stop being distracted.

Step two, Dean devouring (Jessica’s accurate words) the diner food, complete. He looks more relaxed now, leaning back against Castiel’s chair, one of his legs out stretched under the table close to Castiel’s.

Step three, mention pie but only serve it if Dean agrees to talk to Castiel.

“There is also cherry pie,” Castiel mentions. “I thought we could talk before I serve it.”

All he gets from Dean is a nod. He’ll take it. He knows he’s the one who has the making up to do and Dean is hurt. Castiel gets up and moves to his sofa, Dean follows but not before helping himself to another beer from Castiel’s fridge like he lives here. He falls into Castiel’s sofa hugging the other side of where Castiel is sitting. It’s a two-seater, not that big but somehow Dean and he manage to put enough space between them for another person. There’s a part of him that wants to scoot closer, his concentration levels would be compromised if he did that though.

“You wanted to talk Cas, so talk.” Dean says staring at Castiel’s floor pensively.

Step four, talk to Dean. Jessica didn’t give much direction on this part, so he’s left to his own devices on how to communicate, which was not one of his strong suits. He joins Dean on looking at the floor instead of him hoping that helps.

“I wanted to apologies for my behaviour last week,” he starts with. Dean shifts on his couch out of the corner of his eye. “I didn’t mean it in the way I think you interpreted it as.”

“How else was I supposed to interpret you calling me insufferable and an inconsiderate asshole?” Dean asks. His voice is curious, not angry. Small steps. Castel continues, “I’m not really what you might call a people person. It takes me a while to get used to someone, to understand someone and for them to understand me, so when you gave me the pie I…” _had this tightness in my chest I couldn’t get rid of because apart from Gabriel it was one of the kindest things someone has ever done for me_. He leaves that part out.

“Didn’t understand?”

“Yes, I was trying to say thank you then you distracted me,” _with your mouth_. “and I couldn’t keep up. You’re very fast Dean and I’m well, not.” He lets out a big exhale after that. He’s rarely this honest with new people in his life about himself. He wants to be honest with Dean though.

The silence falls between them again. He starts to think he hasn’t made things better, if anything he’s made things worse. What he said doesn’t make any sense to Dean even if it makes complete sense to Castiel. His brain isn’t wired like other peoples. Or maybe Dean is still hungry, maybe he should have gotten more chili cheese fries, another burger. He fights the urge to touch his hair again, it’s probably a mess already.

“So, what you’re saying is,” Dean starts to talk. Castiel turns his head so fast he feels a little light headed. Dean is still looking at the ground. “that we got off on the wrong foot.”

“Yes, I think so. I didn’t mean to hurt you Dean. I would never want to do that, intentionally. I may, however, still insult you by accident.”

Dean smiles at that, almost chuckling a little. Castiel wants to hear what Dean sounds like when he laughs and means it. He brings his eyes up to meet Castiel’s. The anger is gone from him.

“Well I can’t promise I won’t piss you off ever again either.”

“I understand.” he does, whole heartedly.

“Alright then,” Dean claps his hands together. “How’s about that pie?”

Castiel gets up to fetch the pie. He debates getting plates but settles for eating it like him and Gabriel do, two forks out of the pie dish. Dean approves. They scoot in closer to together facing each other with the whole pie between them. Their knees touch.

Step 5 make up and eat pie. Complete.

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

Dean’s at the auto-shop, doing what he usually does, fixing cars, talking to Benny and trying not to piss off Bobby too much. The last part doesn’t go too well, he’s whistling underneath a car he’s working on and gets a kick in the ankle. He can see the boot and knows the culprit it belongs to.

“Bloody hell Bobby, what gives?” he groans.

“Enough of that whistling boy, driving me insane.” Bobby replies.

“I’ll take a happy Dean over an angry Dean any day.” He can hear Benny say.

“Don’t remember asking for your opinion, did you sort out the suspension in that car yet?”

This is the usual antics that tend to happen while at the auto-shop. Dean fucks up, Benny saves him, Bobby gives out to both of them shutting them up for about an hour then Dean fucks up again and so on it goes. The fuck ups aren’t actual fuck ups, like Dean wrecking a car more than when it came in, its usually more Dean is irritating Bobby either by accident or on purpose. This hour’s fuck up being Dean’s in a good mood.

He’s in a good mood because him and Cas are back on good terms after nearly a month of avoiding his obnoxiously cute neighbor. Looks like Dean could still hold a grudge.

A couple of evenings ago he was in on a Wednesday night, Sam ditching him to study in the library or whatever lie he spun in the afternoon cancelling their plans to hang out. Dean knows when Sam is lying. He didn’t push it, probably wanting to see Jess or something. This left Dean planless and with no food in because his plan was to go get a bite to eat with Sam. Cue Cas knocking on his door till, he answered offering him dinner like _he knew_ Dean was about to chew his shoe he was that hungry.

Cas had burgers, fries, onion rings pretty much everything Dean loved. He tried not to seem impressed, wanted to keep that stuck up dickhead aware he was still pissed off but the more he ate the harder it got. That food was so damn good, dripping in so much grease that he wanted to lick his fingers clean. Cas did lick his fingers clean more than once, or at least his thumbs and index fingers, sucking them clean before he would touch his own beer. It was hard to stay angry with that too, a whole other spectrum of feelings came over him then, ones that needed him to stretch his leg out, so his jeans didn’t feel so tight in the crotch.

He could play off the silent treatment over still being pissed when really, he was reciting in his mind what spirits were on the back line of the bar at the Roadhouse he could remember in order to will his hard on away.

Anyway, long story short, Cas and he made up then they ate cherry pie on the sofa till they were too stuffed to do anything but go to sleep, in their separate apartments. That didn’t stop Dean from rubbing one out before he turned off the light, that damn Cas and his damn uncontrollable noises he made when he ate the pie in front of Dean. Sure, Cas didn’t understand people too well but c’mon he had to know what those noises sounded like. They were downright _obscene_.

So yeah, he’s in a good mood and screw Bobby for trying to ruin it on him.

Sam and Jess come to visit him when he’s about to go on his lunch break. He’s still under the same car trying to figure out what the problem with it is. Sam kicks him in his ankle to tell him he’s there. Dean curses, hits his head on the under carriage. 

“I can’t kick Bobby, but you can be sure as hell I can kick you Sam.” he shouts. That’s definitely going to leave a bruise now.

“What?”

“You see, Bobby already kicked him earlier so he’s pretty sensitive.” Bobby explains. Dean puts his tools down and slides out from under the car. Sam and Jess are standing over him. He can smell the lunch in Jess’ hands.

“Burritos?”

“You know it.” She smiles. He gets himself off the ground, dusts himself off and kisses Jess on the cheek to say hello. He turns and gives his brother a dead arm. Sam winces in pain gripping his arm where Dean gave him the punch. Jess and Benny laugh.

“That’s for the kick,” he hugs his brother in his dirty overalls. “And that’s cause I love ya.”

“Gross Dean come on! This was a clean shirt.” Sam pushes Dean away. Sam had a few inches on his brother now, gave him the unfortunate upper hand.

“Bobby, I’m taking my break!” he calls out not waiting for Bobby respond. He walks out of the shop with Sam and Jess towards his car, so they can lean on it to eat and put their food on it. Dean keeps her pristine, people could eat their food off of her. Dean has eaten food off her, granted he wasn’t sober at the time.

He inhales his burrito. Working at the auto-shop works up quite the appetite and sometimes he’ll skip breakfast for the sake of a few more moments in bed. Jess and Sam keep eyeing up each other with smirks like they’re up to no good. Dean inspects his burrito. He’s not falling for this again.

“Alright, what did you put in it? It better not be foot cream again Sam I swear…”

“We didn’t touch your burrito Dean calm down,” Sam interjects. “Though that was pretty funny when I did that.”

“For you maybe, I hooked up with Lisa Braedon after that and she broke up with me!” She was too embarrassed to even look at him. It took a whole lot of groveling to get her back. Sam told Ash, who told the entire school and they were called Fungus and Gangrene for a week.

“Your burrito is safe Dean.” Jess assures him. He trusts her. He wouldn’t trust his brother with his food as far as he could throw him. Which means as he’s gotten older the trust is slowly withering away. They still won’t lose their smirks though which has Dean suspicious.

“What gives then?” he asks while taking another bite of his delicious burrito.

They look at each other like they’re communicate telepathically. Sam nods his head with a devious smile while Jess shakes it with those crazy eyes, she can do that puts the fear of God in anyone who dares cross her. He tries to deduce it himself. If Sam wants to tell Dean something, something that he knows Dean will want to know but Jess doesn’t want Dean to know whatever it is they both know then that can only mean one thing.

“You two get caught doing the nasty in the library on Wednesday?” he winks at them both. They neither confirm nor deny that comment, instead change the subject back to Dean, which means they totally did.

“How was _your_ Wednesday night?” Jess nudges him with her shoulder.

“Turned out pretty ok in the end, after being ditched by this jerk over here.” He points to his brother who stands in front of them. Sam just rolls his eyes. His permanent answer when Dean frustrates him but is not bothered to do anything about it.

“Oh yeah? What did you get up to?”

“Funnily enough, Cas, or Professor Novak, whatever you call him showed up wanting to apologies for being such a dick to me. I told you about that right?” Sam and Jess both shake their heads. “He called me an inconsiderate asshole AND insufferable in the space of two minutes, this was after I got him an apology pie for playing the music too loud that night you were over.”

“Ouch.” Sam comments. Sam knows what those words mean, knows that he’s heard them enough in his life growing up.

“Yeah, so I told him to go fuck himself, then he invited me over to his place for dinner and yeah we’re cool now.”

“Glad you two patched things up. He’s my supervisor for my final paper, the happier he is, the better chance I have of getting a good grade.” Jess says.

“Is he ever happy? He constantly looks pissed off whenever I see him around campus.”

“He just has a resting bitch face Sam. He’s like my favourite professor.”

“What makes him so special?” Dean wants to know, maybe it’ll give some clues as to why Dean finds him so interesting, there is just something underneath Cas that Dean wants to figure out. He knows he’s drawn to him, like when Cas looks at him, really looks at him and Dean’s mouth would go all dry and then there’s the other part, where he’s innocent and kind of adorable when Dean makes him a little flustered. He feels there’s still more, like he got the previews, he’s in, now he wants the main event.

“I can still remember the first lecture he ever gave. He was talking about the ultimate story we can tell is the lives we have lived and continue to live,” Jess smiles thinking back to that memory. “That our stories mattered, that we were interesting enough to make someone want to read what we had to say if we wrote from within. Our dreams, our imagination, our experiences are all worthwhile and not to be afraid to use it when story telling.”

Dean is a bit taken aback if he is all that honest with himself. The idea of Cas standing in front of an auditorium filled with students is a surprise. Cas told him that night he wasn’t a people person and yet he did that, he does that, daily. He speaks to students and relates to them on a level that has Jess calling him her favourite professor. It reminds him of that night when he was doing his laundry and reading those short stories. The attention to detail Cas gave every one of them, Dean jotted it down to being particular but no, he did it because he cared about his students were writing which turns out, was themselves.

“Yeah but would it hurt him to smile once in a while?” Sam drones.

“Shut your cakehole Sam, you don’t even know the guy.” Dean snaps. He says it like he knows Cas any better, which he doesn’t, not really. He’d like to though. Sam pulls a face at Jess. A knowing face, whatever he knows it’ll have to wait as another car rolls up with a flat tire and an old lady behind the wheel. Dean has work to do.

* * *

Castiel checks his post after work. It’s been a good day, lectures were good, seminars were good, even Naomi wasn’t as painful as she usually could be and he’s on top of his work load for once this semester. He’s looking forward to getting back to his mid-week routine of a book and laundry.

He hears Dean’s car roll up outside, the loud bang of the driver’s side door and the whistling that carries itself into the hall. Castiel takes his time closing his post box in hopes of maybe sharing the lift with Dean up to their floor. As the door to the building opens Castiel turns, post in hand.

Dean startles seeing Castiel.

“Cas.” He gasps hand gripping his heart. Castiel seems to have gotten himself into a habit of scaring Dean. He’s not in overalls this time, already changed back into his day clothes but he has been at work. Dean’s got a smudge on his neck running up behind his ear. His hands haven’t been cleaned properly.

“Hello Dean.”

“You heading up?” Dean points to the lift as he walks towards it to press the button. Castiel follows pleased that his stalling as created this situation. He hasn’t spoken to Dean since they said goodbye after eating the cherry pie on his sofa. They’ve exchanged hellos in passing, Dean heading out for his second job while Castiel is coming home from his only one.

Dean leans against the wall of the lift. His hands grip the bar and he rolls his head between his shoulders. He looks tired. Castiel mirrors him, leaning against the other side. The lift door closes, and they start the slow ascend. He looks at the mark on his neck, decides it’s a finger mark. Dean probably running a hand around it like he did sometimes, and it’s left a mark. Dean catches him staring.

“I got something on my face, don’t I?”

“Your neck.” He corrects him. Dean tries to get it off, he narrowly misses where it is.

“Did I get it?” he asks. Castiel shakes his head. “Where is it?”

He steps into Dean’s space, close enough to get a look at the smudge. Its soot, easier to get off than oil. He doesn’t really think next, rather just ends up doing, bringing his thumb up and rubbing it gently along Dean’s neck where the smudge is parallel to his jawline.

Dean’s breathe hitches but he doesn’t stop Castiel, so he keeps going. It requires more pressure to get it off which Castiel applies. He sees Dean pull at his bottom lip on reaction, it stirs something dark in Castiel. Dean still doesn’t stop him, so he keeps going.

Castiel swipes his thumb to where the smudge ends, behind Dean’s ear where his hairline begins, it means Dean has to crane his neck to the side for Castiel to get to it, which he does with ease, giving Castiel his whole neck to touch. He refrains, barely. Castiel does this action twice, maybe three times. Something about Dean exposing his neck for Castiel is enticing.

Dean starts to lean into it, chasing Castiel’s thumb. He’s enjoying it. Castiel is too, such a small touch, their first touch and its sending Castiel’s mind into overdrive.

A slide show of their bodies pressed close in the lift. Dean with a fistful of Castiel’s hair as he pushes Castiel’s mouth further into the joint of his neck and shoulder, asking for it to be marked, asking to make it last a week.

He feels Dean’s warm skin under his touch, feels where the sweat has clung to it from his manual job and the short stubble grazing his thumb. Castiel pictures Dean’s stubble grazing other parts of his skin, would it burn, would it leave a mark, questions he sorely wants answers to. He could write a poem alone on how Dean’s teeth hold his bottom lip in place, voluntarily gagging himself from Castiel.

When he’s sure the smudge is gone and can no longer justify touching Dean in that way, he takes his thumb back. Dean’s wide eyed and staring at Castiel like he isn’t quite sure what quite what just happened and Castiel isn’t quite sure he can answer it anyway. The lift door opens. They don’t seem to notice, trapped in the air of what has unfolded between them.

“You getting out or what?” the lady from 3A asks. It pulls them out of it. Dean coughs and stiffens himself up. Castiel similarly tries to shake off the realisatons he’s currently having of what the subtext of what he just did might mean to Dean. An innocent gesture that somehow turned into anything other than innocent. Before he has a chance to apologies Dean is stepping into his flat and closes the door behind him.

* * *

It’s a few hours later and there’s a knock on his door. He turns down the ring he has his pasta cooking on to answer. Its Dean, showered, Castiel assumes from his unstyled hair, clean hands and new clothes he’s wearing. He leans against Castiel’s door frame, one hand up above his head making his shirt rise a little. Castiel already had taken care of his guilty erection earlier after what happened in the lift, he didn’t need to do that again so avoids looking. He wasn’t expected to see Dean again, the way he ran away from Castiel so fast.

He realises he hasn’t said hello yet.

“Hello Dean.”

“Here’s the thing, I’ve got no food in my fridge, I’m pretty hungry and I can smell that bacon from my apartment. Think you can help a neighbor out?” he asks full of smiles and teeth.

Castiel can feel the sides of his mouth lift. He opens the door more for Dean to come inside.

“Yes neighbor, I will feed you.” He replies. Dean slides in beside him, careful not to touch him. Castiel’s aware of it, he’s glad Dean still wants to be around him but conscious that he’s trying to keep his physical distance. He closes the door behind Dean and makes a mental note to keep his hands to himself. Perhaps Castiel did over step in that aspect even if he managed to half convince himself that Dean enjoyed it, perhaps it was his imagination.

Dean wanders around while Castiel drains the pasta. He’s curious to see what Dean is looking at and makes quick work adding the bacon, cream and parmesan to the pot. Castiel’s apartment isn’t much but its home. He has stacks of books everywhere, his bookcases overflowing, and he has yet to buy a new one, even his coffee table has books on it. His desk is similar to his one at work, the computer with a cup of pens and a shoe box of scraps of paper. His bed parallel to one of the windows, his bedside table also with a shoebox with scraps of paper, some with scribbles of his dreams on them, some blank ready for writing on. His kitchen is near the front door, it’s small, he doesn’t need anything more than what he has.

The orphanage made him wary of big spaces, he’s used to closed quarters. Gabriel convinced him once he graduated to buy a big apartment, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, separate everything and he couldn’t cope with the space. It was too much for him. He founds this place and bought it outright, cash in hand, he liked the exposed red brick and big windows, he found carpet too soft so wanted wooden floors. It ticked all of his boxes and didn’t give him anxiety which was the main thing.

He spies Dean at the bookcase, leaning in to inspect the names of the books. It takes a second for Castiel to register which particular book he’s looking at.

“No way,” Dean pulls out a thin book. He shows the cover to Castiel. “This you?”

“Yes.” Castiel admits. Its’ not as if he can lie when his name is on the cover. The only book he published with his actual name. Jimmy Novak is what he usually refers to himself as when he has published other collections of stories. Dean comes across into the kitchen with it still in his hand flicking through the pages.

“You’re an author, that’s pretty freaking cool,” He says genuinely. Castiel doesn’t know how to respond to that, compliments are not what he’s used to. He turns back to the pot to stir as it begins to bubble. He adds the parsley. “An angel’s falling,” He hears Dean read the title aloud. “A collection of short stories from renowned award winning story teller Castiel, award winning seriously Cas?”

“I have two, I personally don’t think it equates to be being renowned. My publicist added that in without my consent.” he plates up the pasta. Dean puts the book away, leaving it on the counter top within arm’s reach and grabs two beers from the fridge as if this is his place. Castiel finds it endearing.

“You think you could read me one after?” Dean asks. Castiel looks up from his plate surprised by that question. Reading one of his stories to Dean sounds more intimate than what happened in the lift, if that was to be considered intimate, erotic maybe more of the adjective to use. Castiel’s stories, that collection in particular are about him at the orphanage. His progressive resentment of religion and all it had to offer him as a child. He wasn’t sure if he was comfortable reading those stories aloud to anyone let alone Dean. Castiel even pulled it from print, wouldn’t let a second edition be published.

“Cas?”

“I will read you one another story I’ve written.” He replies. Dean seems content with that. They eat in silence. It gives Castiel time to think which of his stories he wants Dean to hear, what part of who he is does he want Dean to know about through his words.

They settle on the couch after dinner. Castiel pulls another book, a less invasive one that he should find no trouble in reading to Dean. He sees Dean relaxed on the couch, legs stretched out in front, one ankle crossed over the other, head looking up at the ceiling. His eyes are closed, that tiredness is still on him, probably more so after a bowl of pasta. Castiel sits back down which cues Dean to open his eyes. He rolls his head to the right, giving Castiel a warm smile.

“I’m ready for my bedtime story.” Dean jokes.

“Does that mean you’re going to fall asleep half way through?” Castiel replies. Dean shakes his head. He flicks through the pages, landing on a story about Gabriel. Cas turns him into the Norse God Loki, a cunning trickster who gets the last laughs on his foes who have wronged him. Its light-hearted enough for a story to tell Dean. He settles himself into the couch and begins.

“A trick in essence is to play someone for a fool…” Dean is asleep by the time he finishes it.

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

Dean hadn’t planned on falling asleep on Cas’ couch. He had a tough day at work. He was tired. The pasta had been incredible and then when Cas started reading the story aloud Dean thought he’d close his eyes for just a minute then he wakes up around four in the morning with a creek in his neck, a blanket on him and the lights out in Cas’ apartment.

He snuck out quietly, not before having a chance to see Cas asleep, curled up in his bed wrapped in his duvet like the burrito he had for lunch, his head just peeking out. His soft snores told Dean he was out for the count. It was adorable, a whole other side of Cas he hadn’t seen before. The many layers to his neighbor.

It was a whole other side from the Cas he experienced in the lift anyway. Which by the way, what the hell was that about and what can Dean do for it happen again? He hadn’t gotten an erection that fast since high school. There he was, almost 30 years old crumbling under the intensity that was Cas in that tiny lift. If he wasn’t holding onto that rail he would have buckled, you could bet your life on it. Cas’ sure movements, the way he pressed harder into his neck like he fucking _knew_ Dean wanted it, his complete attention on Dean, just _every-damn-thing_.

He hadn’t even made it to his bed to deal with his erection, just fell onto his couch freeing himself from his jeans and thinking of Cas with his hand on his neck, not a thumb, the whole hand wrapped around it and his other hand reached around from behind Dean to jack him off with just as sure movements as he had in the lift, giving him that kind of attention. Dean almost split his lip he was holding it in his teeth so hard when he came, hips rising off of the sofa on their own accord. It was freaking awesome.

Then for some reason he thought he’d go back to Cas, because the lift wasn’t enough, he still wanted more of him, making up some excuse of not having food in his fridge just to be around him in a completely different way. To figure out what was underneath. It was chill, nothing too strenuous. Dean kept his hands to himself for the entire night and after that epic jacking off, he gave himself hours before he was content with just hanging with Cas. Content so much he fell asleep on the couch drifting off to Cas’ calm voice.

Dean leaves before Cas does, 8am start at the auto-shop so he doesn’t see him since falling asleep on his couch. He works another hard day. Why don’t people learn how to take better care of their cars? He gets Ash to cover his shift at the Roadhouse because he’s done being on his feet all day and has officially ran out of clean underwear. When he heads down to the basement, he finds Cas sitting on the ground still in his work clothes with a book in his hands.

“Boo.” Dean says. It’s usually Cas scaring Dean, not the other way around. Cas doesn’t even flinch, doesn’t even look up from his book.

“I heard your footsteps Dean.” he flicks over to the next page.

“How do you know they’re mine?” Dean walks over to a free machine, throws in his clothes with his washing powder. He doesn’t wear anything remotely white.

“You have a heavy foot.” Cas comments. His immediate reaction is that it’s an insult, then he remembers their conversation. Cas might fuck up, but he doesn’t mean it. He lets it go.

Dean joins him on the ground, close enough that the sides of their bodies touch, from shoulder to thigh. It wasn’t intentional. He debates scooting over but Cas doesn’t seem phased, so he stays, enjoying the contact. A yawn creeps it way out of Dean.

“You’re working too hard.” Cas says, he puts a scrap of paper in between the page he is on to save where he is in the book. Dean knows he works too hard. He’s making more than enough money to cover his rent and maintaining Baby between Bobby’s and the Roadhouse. The thing is Dean doesn’t do being alone very well. He can do an evening here and there, a full day max, after that he needs people around. Not necessarily to talk or interact with, he’s happy just sitting in a bar by himself as long as there’s people around.

He likes his own place but knows he’d go insane if he had to stay in there for longer than a day by himself. Never gotten used to being on his own, had Sammy to look after, had his Dad to look after, he’s been around people all his life, even on the road he’d keep people around him through making friends or hooking up with someone with a nice ass and a pretty smile.

“Watcha reading?” he changes the subject. Cas shows him the cover of the book. _Smoke and Mirrors. Neil Gaiman._ “Any good?”

“Neil is a good story teller.”

“I would ask for a story, but I don’t want to fall asleep on you again.” another yawn comes out of him. Damn he is exhausted, putting on the laundry might have been a bad mistake. He can feel the weight of his body more than usual, feel his head wanting to pick a side and drop. 

“You can, if you want to.”

“I can do what now?” Dean asks. He must be too tired, has to be. Cas did not suggest Dean sleep fall asleep on him here in the basement of their apartment building.

“Sleep on me.” Nope, he heard it right. _Sleep on me Dean, it’s no big deal._

“You serious?” he has to double check.

“I rarely joke Dean.” Cas re-opens his book. “I will wake you when our clothes are finished.”

Dean thinks about it for all of five seconds. His laundry is going to take an hour at least, then he can hang his wet clothes in his room to dry. An hours’ nap, a nap on Cas, an hour’s nap on Cas that Cas is ok with. Does he really want to pass up on this invitation? His body gives in before his mind does and drops his head to Cas’ shoulder. His eyes close, trying to dose off. The sounds of the machines are distracting.

“Damn machines.” He mumbles. He shifts his head on Cas’ shoulder, needs to turn his body towards Cas more to get more comfortable, not too comfortable. The urge to just turn his whole body and bury his head in Cas’ neck is there simmering underneath his skin.

“Would you like me to read aloud?” Cas suggests. Again, like it’s no big deal. He doesn’t necessarily want to get into the habit of falling asleep during Cas reading to him even if his reading voice is gentle and the lack of much infliction sort of lulls him off. Fuck it, he’s tired.

He nods his head, brushing his face against the soft fabric of Cas’ shirt too embarrassed to say it out loud. _Yeah Cas, read me another bed time story to fall asleep to._ When he feels Cas drop his head on top of Dean’s he sinks further into the side of Cas’ body and is out like a light.

* * *

On Saturday Castiel is repaying Gabriel by working at the bakery as promised. He’s on the till where he’s comfortable, the constant chat Gabriel and Kevin do with the customers is something Castiel hopes to avoid as long as humanly possible.

Saturday’s brings in another wave of customers, the students. Their academic schedules results in them only being able to get to get to the bakery on the weekends seeing as by the time they are free Sweet as Heaven is already sold out. He doesn’t mind seeing some of his students, emphasis on some. The ones who have yet to figure out that he occasionally works here creates the worn-out conversation he is currently having.

“Professor! You work here?”

“Occasionally.” He keeps his answers short. The student, whose name he still hasn’t committed to memory hands him the box of doughnuts. Half glazed, half peanut butter and jelly filled.

“College not paying you enough?” the student jokes, like he’s never heard that one before.

“They pay me just fine,” he seals the box with a sticker. “That’ll be 18 dollars.” The student pays with his phone then leaves. When he looks up to inspect the queue and product left, he spies a familiar face in the line. Dean. He’s not alone, standing talking with Jessica his student and the tall guy who Gabriel flirts with any chance he gets. Sam.

Castiel hadn’t connected the dots that the person Jessica had texted that day in his office was Sam, the Sam from the bakery who has been buying more cherry pies recently for his brother who loves them, and that Dean loves cherry pie. Conclusion being Sam is Dean’s brother and by the looks of Sam’s arm swung around her shoulder, Jessica and Sam are together.

He watches them for a moment, the way Dean is smiling at them so full of love and affection, how he laughs so hard he throws his head back almost hitting somebody behind him, how they stand so close to each other shoulders constantly touching even though there is enough space to avoid. It’s like Dean is a universal magnet for those around him, Cas included.

“Well look what the cat dragged in,” Gabriel puts his hands out wide. “Haven’t seen your faces here in days, I was beginning to think the worst.”

“Mid-terms are a bitch Gabriel.” Jessica replies. Sam nods in agreement.

“You’re going to need sugar then, my cure all for bitchy mid-terms,” Gabriel starts making a box to fill. Sam, Jessica and Dean all lean closer to the glass front to inspect what he has left.

“White chocolate macadamia cookies for the lady…”

“You got any pie left?” Dean asks noticing there aren’t any in the cabinet. Gabriel looks over to where Castiel is standing.

“Castiel!” he shouts. Dean snaps his head up hearing the rare name and raises his brows when he spots Castiel standing behind the till in a Sweet as Heaven apron. Gabriel makes a gesture for him to come over to him.

“Professor, I always forget you work here sometimes.” Jessica smiles happy to see him when he joins Gabriel behind the display.

“Only when I’m made to.” Castiel says deadpan. Dean is smiling at him like he smiles at Sam and Jessica and it makes his heart swell.

“I just want to spend time with you Castiel. You’d swear I was holding his books hostage sometimes.” He ruffles Castiel’s hair with his sugary hand. Castiel is too used to it do much about it. He’ll get the sugar out later. Dean’s smile falls a fraction.

“You have done that Gabriel, more than once.”

“I miss you during the week, sue me.” Gabriel defends his antics. Jessica and Sam chuckle. It is true, he doesn’t get to see Gabriel during term time. They use Cas’ breaks to spend actual quality time together.

“I mean out of all the places to spend time together; a bakery doesn’t sound so bad.” Dean shrugs.

“Thank you! See handsome over here gets it,” Gabriel points to Dean. Dean rolls his eyes. He isn’t falling for Gabriel’s shameless flirting advances. It makes Castiel appreciate Dean’s person even more.

“Do me a favour _angel_ ,” he knows how that name winds Castiel up, not that others would know that of course. “bring…” he points at Dean not knowing his name.

“Dean.” Sam tells him.

“Bring Dean-o here around back, show him the pies.” Gabriel gestures towards the kitchen. Cas’ tries to hide his smile, looking at the floor instead of Dean, the chance to get some time with Dean while at work is a nice surprise. “The cuties and I will sort the other stuff.”

He brings Dean around back, tells him to watch the step as they walk into the kitchen. Dean looks around while Castiel brings forward what pies are left from the back. Gabriel keeps them in warm space so they can stay fresher for longer. Dean isn’t saying much. Cas is usually trying to get Dean to stop talking, he puts it down to unfamiliar surroundings.

They both lean over the counter to inspect the markings that Gabriel has pressed into the crust to differentiate the fillings. There isn’t much left, two berries, one apple, a spiced pear.

“I bet you’ve tasted every pie in this place.” Dean remarks with a new tone Cas has yet to hear from Dean, envy. Dean does love pie.

“Yes, Gabriel makes me try everything.” He smiles remembering the awful combinations Gabriel tried to make when it came to pie and how he wanted Castiel to try each one much to Castiel’s demise. Gabriel went through a phase of trying to get marshmallow and apple to work. It took ten pies before he gave up. Cas had to try everyone.

Dean’s leaning against the table, arms crossed over his chest. Cas mirrors him. He lets himself admire Dean while he’s quiet, how his jeans fit snug on his hips, his belt buckle showing due to his top not being pulled down enough. His flannel loose on his sides like undrawn curtains and Dean’s stomach is the show. Cas is awfully cheesy when he’s in a light mood.

Dean coughs bringing him out of his memory.

“So, does Gabriel know that we’ve had dinner together, that I’ve slept over and you know _other_ stuff…” Dean isn’t looking at him, staring at a spot on the ground. The last time he did that Castiel had upset him. That snaps him out of his train of thought.

“Have I done something wrong?”

“Just answer the question Cas.” Dean snaps. He has upset him. He doesn’t understand.

“No, I haven’t told Gabriel.” They don’t share things like that. Their friendship doesn’t involve that kind of conversations unless Gabriel specifically asks which is rare. Gabriel gave up on asking about Castiel’s crushes some time ago, if Castiel wants to call Dean that. It seems a bit juvenile for what he really feels for his neighbor.

“Did you tell him that pie he made was for me, that we shared it on your tiny couch?” he asks. Their eyes meet. Dean is angry.

Cas shakes his head. Dean sighs, laughs quietly, not a real laugh, a sort of forced chuckle and rubs his hands over his face like he’s come to some realisation. “Wow Cas just – wow.”

“Dean can you explain to me what I’ve done?”

“You’re not that much of a dumbass Cas, you can’t be,” Dean pushes himself off of the counter, he looks defeated. If Castiel could just figure out why. Castiel doesn’t know how to respond to that. His brain is trying to piece together what could have happened that has created this response in Dean. He’s coming up short every time.

“Maybe I’m the dumbass.” He hears Dean say under his breath.

He walks out of the kitchen without a pie.

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

Dean is a bastard at work, he knows he is. Ellen has already called him out twice for his behaviour. He snapped at Jo for getting in his way behind the bar, making him drop a glass and it smashing everywhere even though it was Dean who wasn’t looking where he was going then at a customer who complained to Dean that he gave him the wrong beer and Dean was this close to throwing it in his face instead reached for the guy across the bar telling him to enjoy his beer or it’ll be the last one he ever has. So yeah, he was being a dick and Ellen put him on drying glasses duty.

He just can’t shake what happened at the bakery that morning. Gabriel’s hands in Cas’ hair, calling him angel and Cas not even flinching, if anything looking like he enjoyed it. The pink on his ears flaring up and the stupid smile on his face in the kitchen when he mentioned how Gabriel makes him eat everything in the bakery. Dean bets Gabriel makes Cas eat plenty alright. To hell with Gabriel and his delicious baked goods. And to hell with Cas and his, whatever he was doing with Dean.

The feeding him, letting him sleep in his apartment, on him, and relentless attention Cas gave him like he wants to slowly unravel Dean piece by piece each time Cas looks at him. Dean played into it all, hook, line and sinker. Is Dean supposed to interpret _“you distract me.”_ in any other way than he thought? That when Dean was around Cas, he found it hard to concentrate, and all the times Dean had been around Cas at that point he managed to be the flirty little shit he tended to be around people he wanted to bone.

He actually thought Cas might have wanted that too or wanted _something_. It felt like a slow burn that Dean was willing to go along with, the innocent Cas that Dean didn’t want to scare away. He was going to play the long game as painful as it was starting to become.

Maybe he did want something, something to play with or entertain himself while he wasn’t around Gabriel. They didn’t spend enough time together, _apparently._ God, it was embarrassing enough having to listen to them talk to each other like they’ve known each other their whole damn lives let alone have to look at it. It was when he confronted Cas, he couldn’t stand it anymore. The confused look on his’ face, his stupid cute head tilt when he’s trying to keep up with Dean. Why would he tell Gabriel, the love of his freaking life, about something as meaningless as what they’ve been doing, like it was nothing to him. So yeah, maybe Dean was the dumbass after all.

A glass breaks in his hand from holding it too tight.

“Fuck.” He curses dropping for the second time that shift another glass. Ash sees what happens and rushes to his side. The bar is heaving but Ash doesn’t care, one down, they’re all down.

“You hurt?”

“Just a scratch.” He lies. He has a cloth wrapped around it. He knows it’s not a scratch, can feel the way the glass has sliced along the palm of his hand.

“Lemme see.” Ash reaches for Dean’s wrist.

“I said it’s just a scratch Ash now piss off and get back to work.” He snaps. Ash puts his hands up and steps away. Ellen catches it all and tells him he’s done for the night. He storms out before he loses his job entirely.

* * *

He’s fumbling with his keys, trying to get find the right one while his other hand is bleeding through the cloth now. The drive home had been less than safe only being able to use one hand for most of it, now he can’t even open his front door. The keys drop for the third time.

“You have got to be kidding me!” he shouts. As he bends down to grab the keys the door to Cas’ opens up and his neighbor’s head sticks out into the hall.

“Dean?” he’s been asleep, his voice filled with slumber. Dean doesn’t respond, reaches for his keys, the right key this time and attempts to open the door. He needs to turn the handle with the key at the same time. His hand is searing now with the pain with what he can only imagine is a shard of glass still in it, but he will be damned to ask Cas for help.

He doesn’t get the luxury of asking. Cas see’s the bloodied cloth wrapped around his hand and walks over to him.

“You’re bleeding.” his voice concerned, and Dean doesn’t have the strength to keep fighting. He wants to get cleaned up, he wants to go to sleep and pretend today never happened.

“It’s nothing Cas, go back to sleep.” _Please, leave me alone._

“Let me help you then I’ll go.” Cas takes the keys off of Dean’s clean hand and opens the door. Cas is persistent and as much as Dean doesn’t want Cas around him, he needs help with his hand. Hospitals were not an option for Dean.

“Fine, whatever.” He huffs and walks into his dark flat, makes a beeline for the sink. Cas flicks the light on, knowing which switches are which given their flats are identical.

Cas is beside him, turning on the tap to let the cold water run. Dean pulls away the cloth revealing his hand. There is too much blood to see the damage. Cas takes Dean’s wrist lightly and guides it under the water. The impact makes Dean wince in pain. He inhales sharp through his teeth. “Is it bad?” he asks not wanting to look.

“You will need stitches.” Cas replies.

“No hospitals.” Dean shakes his head.

“But Dean…”

“No fucking hospitals Cas.” He stamps out every word looking Cas dead in the eye to show he means it. The last time he was in a hospital his Dad died, before that his Mom died.

Cas nods reluctantly.

“Keep your hand under the tap, I’ll be back.” Cas lets go of Dean’s wrist and rushes out of his apartment. Dean pulls out one of his stools to sit on to wait. The cold water starts to numb his hand.

Cas is back quickly with a green tin box in his hands. He’s just in that loose white top again and a pair of boxers, his hair in array. He really did wake Cas up from his sleep. Cas takes the other stool out and opens the box, rummaging through it to take out what he needs

Gauze, needle, threat, anti-septic spray, tweezers. Everything he’s going to need to stitch Dean up.

“You’ve done this before right? Stitched someone up.”

“Let me see your hand.” Cas puts his hand out. Dean is hesitant.

“Yes or no, those are the answers to that question.”

Cas sighs heavily, runs both his hands through his hair like he’s irritated by Dean. If he didn’t want to be here, he could just leave. It’s like not Dean asked him to be here. He’s about to tell Cas to piss off when,

“Give me your hand.” and if Dean ever needed to hear Cas’ teacher voice there it was. It’s like he responded on instinct, every scary teacher in high school rushing back to him. He gives Cas his hand. “Thank you, Dean.” his tone now softer.

He inspects Dean’s hand, gently with his fingers bringing it close to his face to get a proper look. Dean tries not to pay much attention to the attention. It’s like he homes in on nothing but Dean, the rest of the world ceases to exist as Cas looks at him. The place could be on filling up with water and Cas wouldn’t realise. Cas hums.

“What?”

“I think there is a piece of glass in your wound, see?” he brings Dean’s hand to Dean, shows him with his index finger where the piece of glass is wedged in. The cut runs from the bottom of his thumb to the beginning of his wrist. It’s not too deep, just going to be a bitch to heal. Dean nods. When he does that, he can feel Cas’ hair against his forehead they’re that close. He pulls back, he’s already in enough physical pain, no need to add to the emotional one he is still dealing with.

“Sooner you patch me up, sooner this is over.” Dean states nonchalant. _Sooner I can go back to hating you._ Cas’s brows furrow a little. He doesn’t press it though and gets to work on Dean’s hand.

He works silently on Dean’s hand, first spraying with the anti-septic spray, ouch, getting the glass out, more ouch and now he’s on the stitching, serious ouch. Dean got Cas to grab his whiskey before he started on the stitching. He downs a double quick, now sipping his next one. Cas is precise and light as a feather when he can be, taking his time. He has done this before.

“Who else did you have to stitch up?” Dean asks now the whiskey was starting to kick in.

“Gabriel,” Yeah, Dean didn’t need to hear that name ever again. He downs the rest of his drink and pours another. “You asked.” Cas is responding to his sudden attitude change.

“Yeah and I wish I hadn’t,” he snarks back. Cas sighs again, he doesn’t respond. He continues on Dean’s hand, almost finished. Dean’s bad mood has come back again. “Does he know you’re here stitching me up without any pants on?”

“Yes Dean, between letting you into your apartment, finding my first aid box and attending to your wound I rang Gabriel to inform him of what I was doing at one in the morning.”

Dean pulls his hand back not caring if it isn’t even finished yet. Bad mood Dean, plus whiskey means being a vocal asshole especially to sarcastic dick heads like the one he’s currently dealing with.

“Fuck you Cas.” He snaps, full of venom. He shoves Cas making him stumble off of the stool, that look on Cas’ face from earlier is back, wide eyed and confused like he doesn’t understand, like he doesn’t fucking _know_ how much of a dick he is being. Right, this is coming out whether he wants it or not. Nothing like downing whiskey on an empty stomach, a sliced hand and some emotional turmoil to really set Dean off.

He reaches for Cas’ shirt and pulls him closer to Dean so he can hear this loud and clear. “You’ve been with Gabriel the entire time we’ve been - whatever the hell we’ve been doing, and you never told me Cas,” his grip in Cas’ shirt is starting to loosen as he speaks. “I don’t know – fuck – I like you Cas and I thought maybe you liked me or something, then I see you with him, all touchy feely and…” He begins angry, then it falters into sadness. The more the words come out, the more Cas’ eyes are on him he feels smaller and smaller. He can’t even finish what he was going to say. _And it kinda ruined me._

Cas doesn’t respond. He doesn’t know what he was even looking for in a response, it’s not like Cas can deny it. He saw it, with his own eyes. When he can’t take the silence any longer, he walks away defeated to sit on the edge of his bed, head hanging low between his shoulders. He’s too tired to tell Cas to piss off, get out of his apartment and his life, go back to avoiding each other, go back to when he didn’t need to know what made Cas tick. When he didn’t think this small spark could turn into an almighty fire between them if they took the time to let it grow.

Turns out he doesn’t have to, Cas’ bare foot steps leave the apartment, he thinks he’s gone, that’s it.

Dean falls back onto the bed. After a moment, the footsteps return, they get louder. The bed dips.

“Cas, what are you doing?” he turns his head to see Cas sitting cross legged on his bed. He’s got sweat pants on now, a book in his hand. The one Dean picked out from the bookcase. An angel’s falling.

“Reading you a story,” His voice is calm and collected, as if Dean hadn’t just shouted in his face about how he felt minutes ago. He doesn’t understand. Dean doesn’t get a chance to object. Cas starts reading.

“The slow clipping of our wings…”

Dean stays awake this time.

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

He knew he would never be able to say this aloud to Dean, not in the way his stories could. The pain in Dean’s eyes Castiel assumed was down to the pain in his hand, not the pain that Castiel had caused him. To hear Dean’s voice crumble as he mentioned Gabriel’s name was deafening to Castiel. He needed to make it better, needed to tell Dean the truth or at least a part of his truth. He owed Dean that much after the pain he caused him unintentionally.

Castiel hopes and much to his demise even prays that Dean hears his words, really hears them flow from the pages to him. The words that Castiel wrote years ago when he was broken, torn apart by what they did to him in there, what they did to Gabriel to get a glimpse at what kind of a friendship they have. That it is love, an unbreakable bond but not in the way that Dean had interpreted.

That it felt like in that orphanage Gabriel and he were prisoners of war, captured by the opposition and the only thing keeping their hopes up was that one day they’d be freed. The days turned into months turned into years and slowly they broke Gabriel and him down, bit by bit, feather by feather their wings broke under the almighty boot that was Heaven’s Little Angels. That under the guise of religion and faith the nuns and priests in that hell could do just about whatever they wanted, and no one came to save them.

They didn’t escape, they didn’t sneak out in the middle of the night and run away to join a circus, or a family didn’t come in looking to adopt them because who wants to adopt broken kids with broken wings like Gabriel and he were. They did their time, like a prison sentence counting down the days till release date.

Castiel’ story wasn’t as obvious as the truth. His story told the tale of two angels, trapped in heaven for over a millennium to slowly find out it was hell all along. Gabriel wanted to change the ending, wanted them to escape, free all the other angels trapped in there, make them heroes.

_“You get the chance to re-write our history Castiel.” Gabriel told him._

_“I want to tell our truth,” Castiel replied. “We survived, together we survived.”_

He finishes the story, closes the book and waits. Dean’s watch reads three in the morning. Half way through the story Dean had flipped onto his stomach, feet hanging off the edge of the bed. His arms are crossed being used as a pillow.

“Jess told me why you’re her favourite professor the other day,” Dean says eventually. “The first time she ever met you, you said that the best stories she could tell are the stories within her life.”

Castiel nods. “I give that speech to every first-year lecture.” He could almost recite it by memory.

“So, it’s not a stretch for me to assume that story was about you and Gabriel, is it?”

“Gabriel isn’t my boyfriend Dean, he’s my…”

“Your brother,” Dean finishes. Castiel nods again. Dean rolls his head in his arms, sighing loud and hard. “I’m sorry man, I’m such a dick for...”

“I can see why you thought Gabriel and I were together. He is very touchy feely.” He uses Dean’s words. They feel strange on his tongue, like they don’t belong to him. He can see Dean smile, its half hidden in the arms he’s resting his face on. Castiel wants to reach out, run his hand through his hair to tell him its ok, that really Castiel is fine. After everything Dean had said the only words that are clinging to him were that Dean said he liked him.

“I still feel like a major douchebag. How many apology pies you think you’ll need for this fuck up? Four? Eight? Eight pies and I’ll do your laundry for week to make up for it.”

Castiel’s sleepy. He can feel it coating him now after the story trying to pull him down onto the bed to where Dean is. He wants to re-arrange them so he can press their bodies together to heat himself up against the furnace that is his neighbor, fit Dean under his chin and feel Dean’s lips on his neck as he breathes. He wants to draw patterns on Dean’s back as they sink into their sleep together. He wants that and so much more. He has to be patient though.

“A date would be nice,” Castiel replies. Dean’s eyes brighten at that, the smile on his face growing. “To make it up to me.”

“Just the one?” Dean asks smoothly even if it is dossed in tiredness. Castiel can feel his ears pinking, Dean wants more than one. That thought is equal parts exciting and terrifying. He’s never been on a date before. A yawn comes out of Dean which Castiel catches.

“Let’s start with one.” He gets off the bed, taking his book with him. It’s time to say goodnight.

“Tomorrow?” Dean calls out as he walks away.

“Tomorrow.”

* * *

Dean knocks on his door around eleven. He answers still in his pajamas.

“You’re not dressed.” Dean notes.

“We didn’t specify a time.” Castiel replies groggily running a hand through his sleepy head. He woke up ten minutes ago. Dean scoffs.

“Be ready in half an hour.” Dean walks back to his apartment. Castiel grumbles an ok and hops into the shower.

Half an hour later he’s showered, dressed, caffeinated and slightly nervous. Just awake Castiel didn’t have much registration of what was going on around him, his emotions and thoughts don’t fully kick in till he’s showered and caffeinated. Now that he is, it’s hitting him. He’s about to go on a date with Dean. Dean who likes him. _Castiel._

This time when he answers the door, he’s ready.

“Hey Cas.” Dean’s smile is warm and quiet, like he’s a bit nervous too. It helps Castiel.

“Hello Dean.” Castiel grabs his keys and steps out into the hallway. Dean gives him enough space to lock up behind him. They walk towards the lift, shoulders brushing. When they’re in the lift Castiel admires Dean. He’s in a maroon shirt, unfastened with a black t-shirt underneath. The late October weather means he’s wearing a navy jacket with deep pockets he’s currently stuffing his hands into as he leans against the wall of the lift. Dean sees him doing it, the staring but doesn’t make a comment about it.

“Where are we going?”

“There’s this diner across the street I haven’t tried yet, Sam says it does good breakfast.”

Dean lets Castiel out of the lift first.

“You have, it’s the place where I got the food from when it was my turn to apologies.”

“It is? Even more reason to go there now seeing as it’s my turn for apologising.”

Dean holds the door open for Castiel.

“Are you being chivalrous Dean?” he questions as he walks through the door first, the cold breeze hitting him, making his trench coat flair out a bit at the ends.

“I’m taking you out on a date, damn straight I’m being chivalrous.” It makes Castiel smile. He’s being taking out on a date. They walk towards the diner.

They wait at the crossing for the green man to show. Dean has pressed the button in front of Castiel even though he’s closer to it. He keeps his hand out of his pocket. Castiel feels bold and touches Dean’s hand with his, rubbing the back of his knuckles over Dean’s palm silently asking for something. Dean answers by laces their fingers together and squeezing like it’s nothing when for Castiel its everything. He looks down at it smiling like an idiot.

He reluctantly let’s go of Dean’s warm calloused hand when they reach the diner, Dean holds the door open again for him.

Its busy on a Sunday, all day breakfast is taken advantage of. They spy a free both and take it, sliding in opposite each other with their jackets discarded on the nearby coat rack. The waiter, one Castiel doesn’t recognise comes over with menus and takes their drink orders.

There is this moment when they just look at each other doe eyed and smiling like school kids or at least this is what Castiel assumes school kids did. Dean makes him feel young, his energy, his attitude, his care-freeness. Castiel had to grow up too fast.

The waiter comes back with two mugs and pours in the filter coffee. Castiel notes that Dean takes his black, no sugar like him. They’re quiet while they look at the menus. Castiel knows what he’s having, he has the same thing each time. Forest berry pancakes. They order, Dean asking for the maple and bacon waffles, extra bacon and a side of hash browns. The silence comes back again. Castiel bridges the gap first.

“This is the first date I’ve been on.” Castiel admits.

“What like this year?” Dean asks. He brings his coffee up his mouth.

“Ever.” He responds at the wrong time, nearly making Dean spit his coffee out.

“No way!” he is surprised. Castiel nods. “If I had known that I would have taken you somewhere a bit nicer than the diner across the street from our apartment building.”

“The diner is fine Dean.” he assures him. Dean doesn’t seem convinced. “I promise.”

The silence returns. Castiel sips at his coffee. Dean breaks it this time.

“Can I ask you a question Cas?” he sounds nervous. Castiel doesn’t want him to be nervous.

“You can ask. Doesn’t mean I will answer.” He attempts a joke, trying to lighten the mood. Dean thinks he’s serious for a moment then notices Castiel’s smile around his coffee mug.

“That was such a teacher response.”

“Lecturer actually,” Dean rolls his eyes at him. It seems to have worked. “What is your question Dean?”

The food arrives before he asks it and they end up talking about how good the food is here. Dean tries some of Castiel’s pancakes. Castiel attempts to take a hash brown and Dean nearly stabs the fork into his hand. They talk about other food, what they love (dark chocolate chip cookies, pie) and what they hate (jam, salad of any variety) and different restaurants around town that neither of them has yet to try but want to. Dean tells Castiel about this diner he found on the road that did the best chicken burgers and how Castiel had to try them someday promising to take him and meaning it.

Dean makes jokes that Castiel can’t follow and Castiel fumbles when Dean shamelessly flirts with him, Castiel calls him insufferable again by accident to which Dean laughs at this time.

“I think I’m adorable.” He replies.

“You are.” Castiel agrees. Dean forgets to ask his question.

* * *

They take a stroll through town after breakfast. Dean feels good, good food, good coffee and well, Cas aint so bad either. He was nervous, couldn’t sleep very well thinking about Cas’ story and their date, texting Sam at stupid o clock in the morning asking the best place for breakfast. When he saw Cas in his pajamas, sleepy eyed and soft part of him wanted to pick him up, bring him back to bed and nap for the whole day tangled in each other’s limbs. He wanted to do that one day, that and lots of other situations he had running around his mind. Situations he thought he’d never get to experience till around 3am last night.

Dean needed to take it slow, slower now that he knew a bit more about Cas. That Cas had a hard time letting people in after what those assholes did in that hellhole he was in, whatever it was. The story left him with questions, what was the hell he was in, what did they do to him, really do to him in there for all those years. He wanted to ask, tried asking at the diner till their food came then he remembered it’s Cas’ first date, ever, he didn’t want to bring the mood down too much. Cas deserved a great first date. He could wait, wait as long as he could till Cas was ready, for anything and everything.

Cas takes his hand again while their walking. It makes Dean’s heart skip a little feeling his cold hand pressed against Dean’s. He’s holding it like he’s scared Dean might let sometimes and Dean rubs his thumb in circles to subtly tell him to ease up or Dean might lose circulation in it. He relaxes eventually. With his two jobs Dean never really took the time to walk around the town he grew up in, shops changed over time, sole trading being replaced by chains. They walked past two Starbucks in less than half an hour.

They don’t talk much but it’s not awkward. Sometimes Dean will spot something that reminds him of when he was young and he tells Cas with ease, wants to tell Cas about himself. The more Cas knows, the easier for him to understand and he wants to Cas to be able to understand Dean like one of his stories. The park he got drunk in with Ash, the cross roads he was in a fender bender before he was legally allowed to drive, the old cinema now a nightclub where he’d bring girls on dates. His life etched into the concrete blocks of this place. Cas listens, a fond look on his face as Dean speaks.

There’s a familiar record store boarded up. It’s not been replaced by anything. He gets a sudden sinking feeling. His footsteps slow down to a complete stop.

“Dean?”

Half there with Cas, half off in a memory. His fingers can still feel the plastic covering over the record sleeves, there’s a small hand tugging on his old leather jacket asking why his Dad was so angry all the time, why did his Dad hit Dean, why didn’t Dean fight back, Dean, Dean, Dean. He promises ice cream to be quiet for ten minutes, just ten minutes of quiet then they’ll get ice cream. He can still feel the dried blood on his lip.

“Dean?” he can feel a hand squeezing his, pulling him out of his memory.

“What?” He snaps. He doesn’t mean to. Cas stiffens up, tries to loosen his hand after being stung, but Dean doesn’t let him go, he doesn’t want Cas to let go. They keep on walking.

He buys Cas some ice cream, mint chocolate chip. Cas wipes Dean’s vanilla ice cream off of the side of his mouth and tastes it on his thumb. The memory fades away.

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

It’s Tuesday, late afternoon, Castiel is in his office reading and replying to emails from over-eager students wanting to check the criteria, wanting to check what did Castiel mean by this comment, wanting guidance on how structure the essay. Each one as painful as the next, half of them involve re-directing the students to administration or the library support team. The side of his job he wishes he didn’t have to do. He regrets turning down a doctorate assistant though the idea of getting one who Castiel could stomach for most of the day was slim. Naomi took his one, now she had two running around after her.

He’s grateful for the knock on his door for once.

“Come in.” he closes his email window on his computer. Jessica comes in. The usual effortless smile on her face isn’t there.

“You have a second Professor?” she asks. The weight of academia on her shoulders.

“Yes, please sit-down Jessica,” He gestures to the chair in front of him. Jessica sits down, her blonde hair tied back messily in her hair, her eyes beginning to sink into her skull. It’s coming up to mid-terms, Castiel has given them a list of possible themes and authors that might appear in it, he can’t do much more than that. He suspects she is struggling with it, most of them are. “Are you ok?”

“Not really.” She admits. He can see her eyes starting to well up. Castiel isn’t great with emotions, especially sadness. He wasn’t allowed to show it at the orphanage, never show any weakness to the other kids, never let God know you’re sad because he created you, you need to be grateful for your existence. The sadness in his students usually related to academic stress, Castiel could cope with that kind of sadness. It was more a release that needed to happen, a bottling up of keeping it all together, the load of work, the pressure of the college, the pressure of parents, etc.

Castiel hands Jessica a tissue and she let her tears fall. His tissue being used as an acceptance that it was ok to do this in here with him if she needed it. Jessica wasn’t the first student to do this in his office and she wasn’t going to be the last. He lets her cry.

Jessica inhales, laughing at the situation.

“Can’t believe I’m crying, how pathetic.” She laughs. She wipes her eyes.

“It’s a stressful time.” Castiel knows, he’s been in her shoes.

“Right? I mean no one told me it would be _this_ hard.” Her voice crumbles. “It feels like no matter how much I study it just won’t go in.” more tears fall.

“You need a day off.”

“A day off?” she says it like he’s just suggested amputation of a limb. He nods. She takes another tissue from the box Castiel produced from his drawer. She blows her nose, shakes her head. “I can’t take a day off Professor, mid-terms, _your_ mid-term is next week!”

Her sadness is turning into panic, the anxiety rises up within her and she’s trying to catch her breath. She needs a distraction, some lightness to subside the anxiety. Castiel decides to bend a boundary.

“When I was in my final year, I was in the library. Mid-terms were burning me out, not that I’d let on that was happening. I spent every waking moment I could in there till one day, in the silent section a friend of mine comes barging in calling out my name…” she listens as he speaks. Castiel recanting the time that Gabriel, who was never a student had managed to sneak into the library to take Castiel away from his books. Castiel refused, standing firm in his stubbornness. His mid-terms were imminent, and he wasn’t prepared. Similar to Jessica, the knowledge wasn’t going in anymore as much as he willed it. They had caused such a scene, Gabriel literally pulling Castiel out of his chair kicking and screaming that security were called. He was banned from the library for 48 hours. It was the 48 hours he needed to give himself distance from his work, see clearly and rest.

Jessica’s anxiety is calmer. Her chest heaves less, her eyes are glassy but brighter from smiling at his story. Getting lost in another life helped him with his troubles, he’s glad he could offer that to Jessica though he hopes it will be safe between them. Castiel doesn’t need his other students knowing he was banned from the library.

“I hope it doesn’t take someone pulling you from your chair for you to have a day’s rest Jessica.” He finishes with. Castiel stands knowing she most likely has lecture to attend to with it coming up to the hour. She follows, standing from her chair and gripping her bag pack strap tight.

“Thank you, Professor. I needed that.” Jessica smiles, her tears are gone. She leaves.

Castiel returns to responding to emails, helping out the students seems less painful now.

* * *

Mid-week laundry two weeks in a row and Castiel is grateful for it. A sign he’s managed to stay on top of his work. Once mid-terms are over with, he knows he’ll lose this opportunity of a quiet laundry room or at least somewhat quiet. He can hear that familiar humming as he approaches the door that’s ajar. Dean stops it seeing Castiel. He is leaning against the washing machine, arms crossed pulling his shirt tight.

“Beginning to think you were going to stand me up.” He says, beaming a smile at Castiel like he hasn’t seen him in years. They saw each other this morning as they were both heading out to work, Dean was running late, couldn’t stay to talk asking when he could see Castiel again as he ran to his car. In a somewhat joke Castiel suggested they do laundry together. He didn’t suspect Dean would take him up on the offer, not that Castiel is complaining.

“Again Dean, we didn’t specify a time,” He replies. He moves to a free machine, loads his washing. Dean reaches into Castiel’s pocket, retrieving his phone with the ease of a pickpocket he almost didn’t feel it. The skill level of Dean’s hands a constant surprise to Castiel. A skill he is still waiting to experience first-hand.

His arm extends to get his phone back, Dean is quick though moving out of his reach.

“Dean.” Castiel warns. A child, an actual child Dean is sometimes.

“Cas,” Dean imitates his voice, the deep monotone. He can’t hold the deadpan stare for too long, breaking into a smirk. “I just wanna type in my phone number, save us from getting the times wrong again if we can actually contact each other to check.”

“There would have been easier ways to go about that than stealing my phone from my pocket.” He advances on Dean, tries again for his phone. The extra inch Dean has on Castiel he is using to his advantage. His arm strains to reach it from Dean’s grasp. Their close, an inch between them and Castiel can feel Dean breathes on his face as he tries to make himself as tall as possible.

“Easier, yes. As much fun? Unlikely.” He wasn’t going to get this phone back this way. If Dean wanted to play, he could oblige. How easy it would be for Castiel to kiss Dean’s neck right now, just below his ear where he remembers Dean liking from the lift, to take that smug look off of his face and replace it with something Castiel is dying to see again. He resists.

Growing up in the orphanage he had learned a few other tricks, he cranes higher to reach for the phone, distracting Dean enough to pinch Dean just below his armpit with his other hand. It isn’t hard, just enough to shock Dean and it works.

The yelp comes first then the phone drops into Castiel’s hand.

“You’re right, that was much more fun.” He smiles placing his phone back into his pocket.

Dean is still, dry mouth parted in a state of slight shock. His hand holding where Castiel has pinched him under his flannelled shirt.

“You freakin’ pinched me?!” he licks his lips and leaves them agape.

“You stole my phone,” Castiel shrugs. He needs to not look at Dean’s mouth for a moment, he’s too fixated on it for his own good, a moment of weakness on their date when he swiped ice cream off of it not really thinking, just acting. Dean’s face went as red as the stop sign, they were standing under.

He turns on his washing machine content with his victory and ability to surprise Dean as much as Dean can surprise him. Dean is still reeling in what happened though Castiel assumes Dean might be milking it, it wasn’t that bad. To ease the slight guilt that was manifesting itself in Castiel for his minor assault he hands Dean back his phone, unlocked, ready for a phone number to be typed into it.

“Ask me if you want something next time Dean.” he hands his phone over. Dean takes the phone, types it in and hands it back.

He leans against the machine. Dean is atop of one beside him letting his legs dangle. The playful energy is dissipating between them. He wants to keep it going, unsure how. He isn’t good with these situations, leaves it to Dean to guide him through it. Part of him hopes Dean being playful was to get to something else, maybe he was wrong. It’s hard to understand people’s motives, sometimes they are true, sometimes there are ulterior ones. If only Castiel could skip ahead a few pages in Dean’s book to read his thoughts.

Castiel debates getting his book out, sliding down onto the ground.

Then Dean speaks.

“What if I asked you to kiss me?”

* * *

The noticeable pause coming from Cas makes Dean think he shouldn’t have asked. He had been slow, biding his time for Cas to feel ready to kiss him and it never came. Stealing his phone in part was to put his number in, in part to make Cas get close to Dean, closer than hand holding. The hand holding, it’s nice, sweet but Dean wants more. Wants those blue eyes darkening and that attention to come back, like Cas is trying to sear through Dean’s clothes and see what’s underneath. It had been all sunshine and rainbows on their date. He can only do sunshine and rainbows for so long.

The pause is unbearable now, feels like an age since he asked it. He’s about to hop off the machine, go crawl into a corner and ride out the rejection when Cas moves, moves in front of Dean. Their eyes meet, green meets blue then blue drops to Dean’s lips. Lips that want to touch his so bad it’s starting to burn in his chest and make its way up his throat. That want, that desire turning their little spark into something bigger. He wants Cas to set fire to him already.

Cas touches Dean’ kneecap with his hand, gently pushing it, a small request. Dean shifts one of his legs wider for Cas to slot in between them, hoping that’s what he wanted from him. It’s all quiet requests and silent stares he’s learning to decipher. If Cas could just give him the key to break it. Then there it is, what he’s been looking for. Dean feel like he’s on show again, a show just for Cas. He licks his lips.

“Dean, your mouth.” Cas says in an exhale like he’s been holding his breath up until this moment. Dean feels that in his dick.

“What about it?’ he asks pulling at it a little just to tease. He wants to know, everything in Cas’ mind he wants to know. The man is so quiet, his brain must be filled with so much. Is it filled with Dean? What he wants to do to Dean? What he wants Dean to do to him? Cas doesn’t answer.

“Cas.” He pleas. Cas doesn’t reply, shakes his head making Dean frustrated, more frustrated than he already is when he’s around his neighbor. He knows how to press Dean’s buttons.

Hands are on his thighs, sliding up his jeans light as feathers as Cas’ body slides closer to Deans. He’s closing the gap. Smaller and smaller it goes till Dean’s nose touches Cas’. Dean wants to lick his lips again, can feel them drying already from Cas breath. He wants Cas to make the move, make the move and Dean’s his. People have taken enough from Cas, Dean wants him to take now, take him however way he wants.

“ _Cas_.” He says again almost begging, begging for Cas to take already. He gets a response this time, Cas pressing his mouth against Deans and its anything but sunshine and rainbows.

It might have been Cas’ first date, but this is not Cas’ first kiss unless he’s read it enough times in books to understand what it is. Cas kisses him like he has the biggest quench and Dean is the first sight of water in miles. His hands move up Cas’ chest, flitting over his shirt collar up to take his face to tilt it slightly for a better angle.

Cas is persistent, pushing his mouth against Dean’s all consuming, all devouring, all nothing Dean expected it to be because this is so much better than Dean had ever hoped for. Cas is a fucking demon sent by Lucifer himself hell bent on making Dean crumble under his touch, under his tongue, under his lips and Dean is trying to catch his breath in the short breaks Cas gives him before claiming his mouth all over again.

The soft hands on his hips have been replaced with strong fingers digging into his flesh just the right amount of pain for Dean to still enjoy it, like Cas doesn’t want him to go anywhere, like Dean would even be anywhere other than right here in the basement of his apartment block with his neighbor necking him like a teenager in the back of a cinema. It’s hot and rough and Dean wants to figure out what Cas’ mouth feels like on his body, on his cock, in his ass.

They’re enveloped in one another, Dean has his legs wrapped around Cas’ waist pushing him in as far as he can go while Cas moves his mouth down the side of Dean’s neck, below his ear in that sweet spot that probably made some pre-cum come out of him if he was being perfectly honest with himself.

“Fuck that’s good.” He exhales. His voice wrecked. Dean has fists of Cas jet black hair in his hands and he’s torn between pushing them further into his neck or pulling him back to feel that tongue in his mouth again. So many decisions…

There’s a cough. It doesn’t belong to either of them. Dean’s eyes look over Cas’ shoulder. It’s someone from a different floor, standing in the doorway with their laundry in their hands. Dean shoves Cas back out of shock. Cas’ eyes are immediately frustrated till they follow Dean’s sight and he turns, seeing the neighbor there.

It’s like a standoff. No one is moving, everyone is aware of what is happening. Dean’s mouth still wet from Cas and Cas’ hair a mess from Dean’s hands, both of their cheeks flushed and their pants tight. Cas makes the first move, grabs his book off of the machine and slides down onto the ground opening it up on the page he had marked.

Dean takes the cue, follows suit and takes his phone out of his pocket to load up a game, Candy Crush or Words with Friends, something, anything. The neighbor then moves to a free machine. Dean clocks they got ages left still on their own washing.

His phone vibrates.

**From: (256) 545 1336**

**20:34**

**> >Should we get her an apology pie? **

Dean looks up, sees Cas’ phone in front of his book. He looks over the neighbor, her cheeks are a little pink, eyes wide, flustering as she loads her washing. Dean shoots back a text after saving the number.

**To: Cas**

**20:36**

**< <nah, she totally got hot watching us. ;)**

He sees Cas’ quiet smile, makes his stomach do a 360.

**From: Cas**

**20:37**

**> >In that case, care to join me on the floor?**

Dean puts his phone away, scoots forward on the machine to get down and joins Cas on the floor. He sees the neighbor watching out of the corner of her eye. Dean feels bold, wraps his arm around Cas to bring him in close and places a kiss the top of his head. Cas doesn’t object, lets his head drop and continue on reading his book as if it’s the most natural thing for them to do this. It makes Dean’s heart twinge a little.

They don’t manage to get back to that hot and heavy once their laundry is done. The moment had passed, and Dean’s eyes were starting to droop. Being around Cas as he read was like a sedative for him, constantly being wired and high energy for others it was nice when he didn’t have to emulate that around Cas. He steals a kiss outside of Cas’ front door and they leave it at that.

* * *


	11. Chapter 11

* * *

Castiel finishes up a lecture Friday afternoon already counting down the hours till the weekend. He’s not even looking forward to his weekend he finds it unnecessary to be delivering new material to students when they have their mid-terms next week. The students weren’t listening and that is just the ones that manage to show up. Many of them locked in their rooms or the library trying to cram as much as they could into their brains. If he was course director, he’d be offering revision lectures but sadly he didn’t have that kind of authority, Naomi wielding her power over him demanding new material to get ahead of the game before the break. As if anyone would be studying over the holidays.

He half imagined his plans with Dean, not that anything had been set out, he had been hoping for more time with his neighbor, another date, another kiss and then more if he had been feeling inclined, which he tended to be these days. That kiss left too many semi colons on Castiel’s body. Sentences that needed to be picked up and continued. Unfortunately, those hypothetical plans were dashed by Gabriel and his skills of emotional blackmail to get Castiel to spend time with old memories when Castiel would much rather spend it making new ones.

He collects his papers. His checks his phone after it being on silent during the lecture.

**From: Assbut**

**13:07**

**> >any good spots around campus to eat professor?**

Dean had saved his number as Assbut in Castiel’s phone in the basement. He has yet to change it back rather enjoying the sentiment of it. That their once argument has now become a joke between them. He is enjoying a lot of things about Dean really.

**To: Assbut**

**13:26**

**< <Yes. Why are you asking?**

His phone starts ringing.

“Hello Dean.”

“Cas! Took you long enough to reply to my text.”

“I was giving a lecture.”

“Oh, my bad. Anyway, I’m asking cause I thought we could, you know, have lunch together.”

“You would come to campus to have lunch with me?”

“I’m kinda already at your campus, with Sammy and Jess. We’re eating… where are we?”

He can hear some muffling in the background.

“Outside the library, on a bench. I picked you up a burrito, you like burritos?”

Understatement, Castiel loves burritos, especially if Dean got them from the truck that illegally parks on campus and stays till security usher them away. It is tempting, he is hungry and has no more lectures till 3pm. Jessica being there is a worry for him.

“Yes, but Dean, Jessica is my student. I’m sure she wouldn’t want me there.”

“Nah she’s cool - you don’t mind if Cas joins us right Jess?”

More muffling.

“She’s cool with it, so see you in a bit?”

He weighs it up in his head. That professional boundary he put down would be pushed but seeing Dean would be nice, help get through the rest of his day and Dean did drive all the way out to campus for him. Be rude not to.

“Okay, I’m on my way.”

The phone cuts dead.

* * *

Castiel sees the three of them on a bench outside the library. Its busy, students and other faculty members are around. They’re not sitting together however, unlike what Castiel is about to do. He spies some of the English team on another bench, they’re absorbed in their debate to notice Castiel. Jessica notices Castiel first, hand up waving in his direction.

He walks up to them, a little unsure of himself. Dean is all smiles slapping the space beside him to sit down. He’s got his khaki jacket on, grey t-shirt on. Castiel knows he’s been at the auto-shop, the tiniest mark smudge over his eyebrow. His fingers itch to rub it off. He refrains.

“Cas, you made it!” Dean’s voice is loud and happy.

“Yes, I did say I was on the way.” Castiel replies sitting down. He smiles to Jessica and her boyfriend Sam. He feels awkward sitting across from one of his students in this capacity.

“Don’t worry professor, I think it’s weird too.” Jessica assures him.

“Oh, can it Jess and eat your damn burrito,” Dean says. He feels a warm hand squeezing his thigh under the table. That also assures him. “It’s not like Cas is some dried-up old bastard like Sam’s professors.”

He gets handed his burrito, still warm wrapped in foil. They eat in silence for a bit before Cas feels the need to drum up some conversation. He is the guest after all.

“What are you studying Sam?” Cas asks.

“History and Law.” He replies.

“Sammy here is gonna to be a big shot lawyer one day.” Dean reaches across the bench to ruffle his brother’s hair. Sam bats Dean’s hand away.

“If I pass these fucking mid-terms.” Sam grumbles. “I mean, eh, sorry professor.”

Castiel weighs up what to say. He can feel Dean tense beside him, like he’s regretting suggesting lunch, suggesting Castiel come and sit with his friends who were technically Cas’ students. He doesn’t want Dean to feel bad, he never wants Dean to feel like he’s messed up ever again if Castiel can help it.

“No need to apologies. I will hate them too once it comes to grading them.” He decides on.

“Except mine though right professor?” Jessica winks playfully. Its works.

“Of course,” Castiel smiles. “You always get good grades in my classes.”

He feels Dean relax, he puts one hand under the table to rest it on Dean’s thigh this time, a reassuring squeeze to let him know that all is ok. Dean worries too much about others. They share a look that Jessica and Sam see but they don’t say anything about it. Castiel knows he’s sitting close to Dean, their arms brushing as they eat their lunch. He doesn’t mind, he isn’t breaking any rules, Dean isn’t a student. He wouldn’t mind others knowing about them, whatever it was they were, one date and a rather explicit kiss is all they’ve shared so far. That might be nothing in Dean’s world even if it means a lot in Castiel’s.

He eats his burrito in silence, enjoying the conversations the other three are having. They talk so freely, teasing one another and joking about anything and everything from Dean’s obsession with his car, to Sam’s old haircut when they couldn’t see his face and he was going through his emo stage as Jessica refers it to. Its light and full of energy, that similar energy that Dean emulates. Childish, carefree and unashamed.

When he finishes his burrito, he stands.

“I must be heading back. I have a seminar to prepare for.”

“I’ll walk you back.” Dean gets up too. The other two make some comment Castiel misses but it leaves Dean with a hint of pink rising up his neck. He throws his rubbish at Sam and darts off before Sam can throw it back without littering. Dean wraps his hand around Castiel’s and Castiel shrugs it off immediately. Eyes dart around to ensure no one saw it.

“I’m at work Dean.” he says in a rush.

“And?”

“And I can’t hold hands with my…with you at work.” He fumbles. Castiel doesn’t need a mirror to know his ears are burning.

“Fine I’ll keep my hands to myself, for now.” Dean smirks. Castiel refuses to take that bait. He needs to remain focused at work. Being around Dean is making that difficult, especially the last time they spent a length of time together he was trying to memorize every noise Dean could make with his mouth on his neck.

They walk back in silence, a comfortable distance apart. Some students greet Castiel as he walks, some faculty members too. The English building is grand and old. Dean gapes as it as they walk into the main entrance. He stops walking, assuming Dean will leave now.

“Where’s your office?”

“Upstairs.”

“Can I see it?”

“Why do you want to see my office?”

“Do I really have to spell this one out for you professor?” Dean’s eyebrows dance suggestively. He never consciously created those kinds of fantasies till Dean started calling him professor in that deep husked voice of his. The temptation is there, Castiel can’t deny that but he’s at work, and needs to remain professional if he has any chance of getting through the rest of his day.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea Dean.” he replies. Dean’s face drops, like he’s been kicked.

“Right, yeah, I better get back anyway.” He darts off before Castiel has a chance to explain himself.

* * *

Castiel waits for Dean to come home from his shift at the Roadhouse. He can’t sleep, doesn’t want to sleep till he speaks to Dean. He stays near his window so he can hear the loud rumble of Dean’s car roll up. That look that Dean gave him in the English building haunted him for the rest of the day. Castiel had been worried that Dean was going to distract him from his day by doing unspeakable things to him in his office. Turns out Dean distracted him because of the guilt that resided in Castiel’s stomach that he had upset him again.

He even ended up ringing Gabriel about it. His friend eventually helping him after ten minutes of explicit comments and wolf whistles down the phone as Castiel retold the events that resulted in the guilt.

“As much as I love the business you two are giving me from pissing each other off I’ve got plans tonight and can’t exactly whip up somethin’ so you’re gonna have to use what God himself bestowed upon you Castiel.”

“Which is?”

“Your _body_ my friend. Ravish him, get all close and personal with that hunk of gruff.”

He hung up on Gabriel before had the opportunity to disclose a list of his own personal favourite positions. Some things Castiel does not need to know about his friend.

Dean’s car comes up to their apartment building at around one in the morning. He waits till he hears Dean in his own apartment before going over. The pit in his stomach won’t be going away any time soon till he deals with this. Dean and he were finally in a good space, no arguing, no miscommunications and one glitch in Castiel’s brain could potentially ruin it.

Castiel pads to Dean’s door. He’s in his pajamas, bare feet on the hard wood floors grounding him as he knocks on the door. He musters up some courage from somewhere. Hair an array from pulling at it out of his own frustration. The opens the door and Castiel doesn’t register Dean as the words come out before backs down from this confession.

“It would have been a bad idea for you to see my office because when you’re around me Dean, you make it difficult to think about anything else but you,” he speaks as he steps into Dean’s apartment, barging past the body in his way. “I would not have been able to concentrate for the remainder of the day had you come into my office and done what I assumed you were suggesting.” He cuts himself off before admitting anymore. With that out of the way Castiel breathes.

He gives himself the chance to register his surroundings, to register Dean.

Dean who walks towards Castiel, shirtless, still in his jeans and bare feet with a look on his face that is anything other than annoyed unless Dean smiles under hooded eyes when he is annoyed which he doesn’t as Castiel has seen that face more times than he cared to count.

This is not what Castiel is expecting. The look is almost predatory, primal the closer he gets and Castiel finds himself unable to move backwards anymore as his legs hit the side of Dean’s couch.

“And what exactly was it you assumed I was suggesting we get up to in your office?” Dean asks. Castiel hears Gabriel’s description of Dean in his mind. A hunk of gruff. A perfect word, combining low throaty tones and rough jagged edges to encompass who Dean is at this present moment. He stands tall, slightly taller than Castiel eyes bearing down on him. He has yet to see this side of Dean’s character, wants to see more of him. Though Castiel understands Dean’s attempts to dominate, Castiel does not resist that pull to challenge him at his own game.

“I could show you,” He reaches out to touch Dean’s chest, a flat palm resting over a slightly faded tattoo. He smirks at the bodily reaction Dean has. He worries when Dean’s eyes shut, unsure if it’s to revel in his touch or Dean working at the auto-shop then a shift at the Roadhouse. “If you’re not too tired that is.” He brushes his hand over Dean’s peck, catching his nipple with his movement.

“You son of a bitch,” Dean he curses but Castiel sees the smile under it, sees his hips sway forward. He has to admit, seeing Dean crumble under him is becoming one of his favourite new past times. Before he ruins it with more words, he follows Gabriel’s suggestion of using his body. Castiel lifts his loose pajama top off over his head. He catches Dean’s mouth fall open, sends a flush over his chest. It’s been a while since he’s shown another person his skin in this way.

“Damn Cas, you’ve been hiding _that_ under all them clothes.” Dean seems to speak without recollection.

His eyes drag over Castiel’s chest from his collarbone to where his pajama bottoms are hanging loose on his hips. He’s unsure how to answer that and loops a finger into Dean’s belt loops, pulling him in till their bodies are flush. The words need to stop. Dean talks too much. As Dean’s about to say something what Castiel can only assume to be attitude he kisses Dean, shutting him up. 

He kisses Dean like he’s desperate for the silence. He is in one aspect though that’s becoming more clouded as he pushes his lips into Dean’s. His neighbour is receptive, picks up Castiel’s intentions and melts into it with ease. Dean pushes and pushes till Castiel realises he’s trying to get him to fall back and he does, rather ungracefully onto the sofa behind him. Their lips part for what feels like two breathes then Dean is crawling over him beelining for Castiel’s mouth that’s waiting open and ready for move kisses, kisses Castiel can’t get enough of. His breath hitches on the impact, legs falling open for Dean to slot in between them.

Dean moves then, breaking from his mouth and peppers Castiel’s jaw, his neck, his chest in kisses as Castiel attempts to get his breath back. He feels Dean suck on his collarbone, pulling the skin into his mouth in such an obscene fashion Castiel lets a curse slip out.

“Shit.”

“Language Cas.” Dean’s smile smears onto Castiel’s chest. He wants it imprinted there. He needs his mouth back though, grabs Dean’s head to bring him back to him, wiping that smile off of his face as he delves his tongue into Dean’s mouth needing to taste him, needing Dean to silence him from words he shouldn’t say. Dean distracts him, pushes his lower body into Castiel’s feeling that friction on his erection. It’s a bit rough but it’s not enough. He needs more.

He makes a calculated risk, rolling them both over to hit the floor in a thud. Dean now under him.

“Cas! What the hell…” Dean groans. Castiel uses his body to apologies, rolling their hips together in hope Dean forgives him. He much prefers this angle, seeing Dean break little by little, his teeth pulling at his mouth, pink hue flushing his under his eyes. Its mesmerising. 

Castiel leans down once more, kissing Dean just as frantic as before, just as dominating, he feels helpless and in control and it doesn’t make any sense, but it makes sense to his body. His hands are on either side of Dean’s head, attempting to hold him up right as Dean runs his tongue along his lips wanting to get in. Castiel let his mouth fall open, gliding his tongue along with Dean’s, moaning from the sensation it gives him.

He doesn’t remember kisses being this intoxicating, drunk on Dean.

Dean runs his hands up Castiel’s arms, over his shoulders, down his spine, over his ass and down his thighs, then reverses back up till his hands cup Castiel’s face. Castiel moves his head, kissing Dean’s jawline, down his neck, behind his ear where he remembers he can get a moan from Dean and he does and it’s heavenly and filthy at the same time. He’s a world of contradictions.

“Touch me Dean, I want you to,” he slips out pressing his mouth into Dean’s neck before he says something stupid to possibly ruin this.

“Where?” Dean replies running his hands over Castiel again. He touches his back, pauses and waits for an answer. Castiel shakes his head, letting it drop to Dean’s chest, remembering to breathe, just breathe. He licks his dry lips and Dean’s chest by accident, the salted taste of his sweat on his tongue. Dean smells like beer, cigarette smoke, sweat, gas, a concoction of his jobs rolled into one scent.

Dean brings him back to the moment, moves down Castiel’s back to let his fingers slid under the waist band of Castiel’s bottoms, silently asking if it’s here he wants Castiel to touch him. Castiel whines because yes Dean needs to touch his ass but shakes his head, there is something more pressing that needs Dean’s hands on and then he feels Dean skate his hands around to his front to get to where he wants Dean to touch him.

“Here?” he whispers in his ear before kissing it, all Castiel can do is nod because it isn’t capable of much else, Dean’s hand is on his cock and it is too much to function. He wants to say that it’s going to be over soon, that he’s going to cum in a matter of seconds, but he can’t seem to put words together because Dean is stroking his cock with such enthusiasm, he starts to feel it in his bone marrow.

All he can do is hold on, hips swaying with Dean’s every movement. He knows Dean is trying to see what he likes, trying it all out and it’s all fantastic. His head is rolling around on Dean’s chest, hands in fists as Dean does his worst on him. He feels his orgasm building like a low rolling thunder.

“C’mon Cas, I got you.” Dean tells him knowing he’s close.

His orgasm punches him in the gut, makes him arch his back and tilt his head back letting out a quiet cry of Dean’s name, he feels Dean lick up his neck and whisper some sweet nothings in his ear about how amazing he is or something along those lines he can’t quite fathom.

He comes back to earth, looking down between the mess he’s made on their stomach, more on Dean’s. White strips and a dark wet stain on Dean’s jeans. He deduces Dean’s cum in his pants.

“Sorry.” He says.

“I’m not,” Dean lets his head drop back onto the hard wood floor in a thud, his chest rising and falling trying to get his breath back. “though I am a little sticky.” His finger runs lazily through Castiel’s mess. His afterglow makes him dopey, Castiel knows the feeling, inhibitions non-existent and he gathers some of his cum on his finger too, brings it to Dean’s mouth to taste it. Dean’s mouth warm around his finger. It’s still hot even after their orgasms.

He replaces his finger with his mouth kissing Dean sweet and soft, tongues passing with no skill or much enthusiasm, just the touch of each other feeding something other than sexual. Eventually the sticky becomes crusty and he breaks the kiss.

He moves to get off of Dean. Dean’s hand reaches for his shoulder.

“Where you think you’re going?”

“I was going to get a cloth,” Castiel replies. “Unless you want to shower.”

“I’d fall asleep before the water heated up.” He yawns and let’s go of Castiel.

They both get up off the floor, Castiel to the bathroom, Dean to his bed to undress. When Castiel returns Dean’s sitting on the edge of the bed naked, eyes closed dosing off with his hands holding his head up. Castiel nudges Dean back, he falls, half asleep already. He cleans up Dean and takes what he assumes are his pyjamas from under his pillow to put on him. Dean helps as much as he can, mumbling gratitude and embarrassment about how he needs to stop falling asleep around Castiel.

When he’s sure Dean is asleep, he slips out of the apartment and back into his.

* * *


	12. Chapter 12

* * *

Dean wakes up alone and embarrassed he fell asleep on Cas again. He really needs to get a handle on that. Last thing he wants is his neighbor thinking Dean’s bored of him when that’s the farthest from any possible truth Dean has about Cas. He hopes the lack of a warm body against his is more due to Cas not wanting to overstep and not a feeling of rejection. Dean reaches for his phone out of his cum soaked jeans because yes, he did cum in his trousers untouched like a teenager. He wants to double check Cas is ok when he sees his neighbor has bet him to it. He opens Cas’ text window.

**From: Cas**

**10:13**

**> > We never discussed the parameters of sleepovers, so I left to be cautious. **

**From: Cas**

**10: 15**

**> > If you have misinterpreted me leaving as anything else. **

He smiles into his pillow at his adorable…neighbor. Whatever Cas is, he’s adorable and Dean can picture Cas lying on his bed debating over how to phrase and word his message to make sure Dean understands. Its adorable as fuck. Also, who calls them sleepovers after the age of 7?

**To: Cas**

**12:04**

**< < don’t have an aneurism Cas its cool I did fall asleep on you…again**

**< < and to avoid any further aneurisms I am totally on board with sleepovers after sex **

The phone vibrates quick enough.

**From: Cas**

**12:06**

**> > I will add that to my mental notes. **

Dean wants to know more about these mental notes Cas is keeping on him, on them, whatever he’s keeping Dean wants in on. His brain automatically drifts to mental notes of the sexual kind. Dean learnt some of his own last night. How Cas likes his dick being touched, stroked, teased and any other adjective Dean can come up with that involves jacking off someone. He likes making people feel good, part of his DNA is doing it but making Cas feel good, making Cas cum is a whole other ball game. Pun intended. The rush he felt bringing Cas over that edge found himself toppling over into euphoria too.

Those memories lingering on his skin are enough to give him a semi. He feels bold.

**To: Cas**

**12:10**

**< < any chance you’re in the mood for another round, maybe in a bed this time?**

He hears something drop on the other side of the wall. Flustering Cas while not even being in the same apartment as he gives him such pride. He runs his hand over his chest, enjoying the sensation of how his top catches his nipple, remembering Cas doing that to him last night. Cas and his hands on his chest, fingers in his mouth, if he wasn’t so hot for the guy, he’d find it pathetic how complacent he is around Cas though right now he just wishes his neighbor would hurry the fuck up and reply already.

**From: Cas**

**12: 14**

**> > Unfortunately, I am running late to meet Gabriel and some friends of ours. **

**To: Cas**

**12:15**

**< < fine…guess ill just jack myself off then**

Another clattering sound comes in from the other side of the wall. He puts the phone away for the sake of Cas managing to get out of his apartment on time and not have to keep cleaning up what he smashed from Dean’s texts. Besides, Dean’s got a date with his dick. He doesn’t have work till later and has a whole new stock of memories to play with.

* * *

The Roadhouse is quiet for a Saturday night. There is a line of people at the bar but there tends to be two and three lines of people behind that line on a typical Saturday. Must be down to it being the weekend before mid-terms and every student in the area is actually taking their degrees serious for once. He might even be able to clock off early if Ellen’s in a good mood, they don’t need three of them behind here and Ellen on the floor till closing.

He serves a painful customer but seeing as he’s in a decent mood he refrains from the eye roll and snarky attitude. Customers who wait till the end of the order to ask for a complicated drink are seriously the worst. Order the drinks from most complicated to easiest, it aint that hard to remember. Cocktails (that Ellen makes me make now), mixers, pints then bottles, in that order please and thank you. Dean turns around with two Jameson and coke and the girl then decides to order four baby Guinness’.

“You aint gonna be able to carry all that yourself,” He notes. Dean already has the other drinks on a tray for her. “Where you sitting? I’ll bring em over.”

“Oh my God, you’re so sweet, thank you! We’re just by the pool table.” She beams a smile at him. She’s cute, any other occasion he’d be inclined to make a pass on her. He doesn’t feel it tonight, hasn’t felt it in a few weeks if he’s being honest. Cas and his blue eyes ruining Dean’s insatiable appetite to flirt with anything that has a nice ass and a pretty smile. It’s like no one else even gets on his blood pumping anymore.

“No problem sweetheart,” He manages to reply with a wink because tips are a thing and turns to line up four shot glasses for the baby Guinness’. Ash hears the order and hands him a baby spoon to pour the Irish cream on top to give it the Guinness looking affect.

“Thanks man.”

“I got you.” Ash scoops ice into two tumblers he holds in one hand.

Dean slings the tea towel over his shoulder, sits the shot glasses on a tray and walks out from behind the bar to the pool table to serve up the drinks. The four girls are sitting around a table having a whale of a time. All tight thin clothes and exposed skin.

“Four baby Guinness’” he serves up the drinks.

“Thanks cutie.” One of the girl’s friends says. He sighs knowing she’s leaning back to check out his ass, working at the bar gave him a whole new level of perspective for objectifying people. Dean ignores the comment and heads back behind the bar. He can hear the whistles and cheers as he walks away.

“I’m never leaving the bar again,” he states matter of fact when he returns. Dean shakes off the unwanted attention and turns to face the bar to take another order. A familiar face is staring back at him.

“Dean-o!” Gabriel yells over the music. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“I do work here,” Dean replies. He isn’t too sure how he feels about Gabriel still, apart from the time he hated the guy for shacking it up with Cas that turned out to be not true, he still hadn’t made his mind up yet on the baker. “What’ll it be?”

“Double spiced rum and orange, double vodka cranberry, glass of your finest red and a bottle of unspecified beer when you’re ready good sir.” He lists them off in the correct order. Brownie points.

“Ice?” Dean has two tumblers in his hands.

“Oh yeah, ice, ice baby.” Gabriel sings. He’s unsure if Gabriel is tipsy or is this his usual attitude. Either way he racks up the drinks and forgets the name of the beer.

“What was the beer again?”

“It was unspecified.” He drags the word out on an exhale. Again, tipsy or not, hard to tell.

“We don’t stock any hipster crap here.”

Gabriel laughs. “I _highly_ doubt that compadre of mine is being hipster, you have met the guy, right? Bout this tall, crow’s nest hair, bit emo? Ring any bells?”

“Cas is here?” he asks eyes peering out into the tables he can barely make out in this dim light bar. Atmosphere dimming his ability to make heads or tails of anyone that isn’t under the lights that hang over the bar.

“Maybe, what’s it to ya?” Gabriel wiggles his dark brows at Dean suggestively. That earns Gabriel his first eye roll of the night. Dean hands him a beer that he likes and doesn’t take the bait Gabriel is trying to land him with. He doesn’t want to assume Cas has even told his best friend, brother, whatever Gabriel is about whatever it is they are. God, he seriously sounds like a teenager sometimes.

“That’ll be 20 dollars.” He taps the amount in the card reader.

“That sounds a bit on the light side,” Gabriel places his card over the machine to pay. “You trying to swing for a free cherry pie, is that it?”

“If you’re offering.” Dean shrugs with a slight smirk. It was on the light side. He didn’t make Gabriel pay for two of the drinks. He’s a generous man when he wants to be. Dean also knows this guy is one of the most important, if not the most important person in Cas’ life. If he wants to get to know Cas better, chances are this guy is the way in.

“Oh, it’s gonna take lot more than that handsome.” Gabriel winks at him and takes the drinks. Dean watches him fade into the dim light of the Roadhouse. He searches for that crow’s nest. Half convinces himself that Cas’ eyes might flare in the dark like a cat. A customer barks an order at him, and he falls back into work hoping that Cas will come to the bar to take the next order.

It doesn’t take long for his hopes to come into fruition. He spies Cas at the other end of the bar, trying to avoid advances from one of the girls from earlier. Dean half wants to watch the show then sees the girl slap Cas across the face. He rushes over to intervene.

“Whoa there,” He leans over to separate the girl’s hand from Cas’ top. “Take it easy.”

“You’re a jerk!” she shouts and walks away not ordering any drinks. Cas is wide eyed, might as well have a neon sign that says confused and adorable on his forehead.

“What in God’s name did you say to her?”

“She had a misspelled tattoo on her arm, I was merely pointing it out to her. It is rather unfortunate to have spelled no regrets as no ra-grets.” He replies deadpan.

Dean laughs, head back, from the gut laugh. Cas’ watches him, head tilts in confusion which only adds to the hilarity that Cas doesn’t even realise he’s ruined that girl’s night.

“Never change Cas.”

The sides of his neighbor’s mouth tilt up and Dean has to refrain from reaching over further to kiss them. He leans back, slings his towel over his other shoulder and claps his hands together. “So, same as last time?” he asks.

“You remember what Gabriel ordered?”

“Yeah Cas, kinda my job.” He reaches for two glasses.

“Then yes, same again please Dean.” he replies.

“You sure you don’t want somethin’ stronger than a beer? Your friends will be hospitalized before you even get tipsy man.” He adds ice into the glass as he talks. He feels Cas’ eyes on him, pushes him to add some flare and moves around the bar to get the vodka and rum. He turns the two spirit bottles upside down in one hand to fill the glasses.

“What do you recommend?”

“For you?” he places the glasses of prepared drinks onto the bar. Cas nods. Dean hadn’t been wrong about his beer choice. He hopes his spirit choice also holds true. He reaches for a bottle of bourbon and triple sec and fashions Cas an apple sour. Dean pours it into an old-fashioned glass from the cocktail shaker and adds it to the line of drinks for Cas.

Cas looks at the drinks like they’ve personally offended him for even existing.

“You need some help carrying them over?”

“That would be appreciated.” Cas takes two drinks, one in each hand even though Dean could carry them on a tray for him. He doesn’t object, just takes the other two glasses and rounds the bar to follow Cas towards the table he’s sitting on.

Gabriel is in the flows of a conversation with two other people. A man, tall, lanky with fair hair. The woman, pale, thick red locks cascading down her back. They all look up as Dean approaches. Cas sits down on the spare seat, handing Gabriel the rum and orange.

“Well look at what we have here.” The man leans forward. “Aren’t you something.”

And this is why Dean does not leave the bar. He plants the drinks down in front of the strangers debating what kind of response to give the leery eyed dick. The man takes the red wine and inhales it, eyes still on Dean.

“Balthazar.” Cas’ voice low and deep, like a warning. Yeah, Dean needs to hear that voice again in a private setting, or the bathroom round back, he aint fussy.

“Oh, hush Cassie, I’ll behave.” His friend gives up the eye fucking.

“Surprised that word is even in your vocabulary.” the woman says in the level of sarcasm Dean likes to operate in. He likes her.

“Dean, this is Anna,” Cas introduces the woman to him. “She’s less…”

“Likely to end up on a watch list,” Gabriel finishes. “Pull up a chair Dean-o and we’ll let you in on all we know about sweet little Castiel here at just the low price of a free bottle of top shelf tequila.” He wraps an arm around Cas. Dean eyes Cas gulps his drink back. If that aint of sign of hidden secrets Dean doesn’t know what is. The temptation is there, to find out more about the guy who he’s occupying too much space in his brain.

He looks around the Roadhouse, makes an assessment on how much he really is needed. Its picking back up much to his demise. Ellen won’t let him off early.

“Can’t, duty calls.” He gestures back to the bar.

“Shame, guess we’ll have to keep those dirty little secrets to ourselves then.” Balthazar adds to the taunting. Damn, now Dean really wants to know. Cas’ drink is half gone already. What could his neighbor be hiding? Secretly a vampire? A murderer? The actual angel from his story?

“Dean! Get your ass back behind the bar. Mom and Ash and swamped back there.” Jo calls out to him from another table. He heads back before she decides to throw something at him. When Jo comes back with empty glasses, he tells her to drop the bottle of tequila at the table he was at along with four shot glasses. He might not be able to get the dirt on Cas tonight, but hopefully he can cash in on this in the future. Dean hears Gabriel’s shouts of appreciation over the music and grins. The money out of his wages for the bottle might just be worth it.

* * *

It’s been years since Castiel had been drunk, this drunk anyway. His brain is fuzzy. His limbs feel like jelly and he’s eight percent certain if he were to stand, he would keel over and become friends with the sticky wooden floors under his feet. Also blinking is proving to be more difficult than he remembers.

“You alright there my angel?” Gabriel asks, shoulder nudging Castiel’s. It causes him to sway.

“Do not call me that Gabriel.” Castiel scowls at his friend.

“It’s what we are Cassie, heaven’s precious little angels.” Balthazar lines up four more shots of tequila. He spills some onto the table as half of the bottle is in their digestion systems now, the alcohol becoming acquainted with their blood stream.

Anna slings back the shot. “Can we not go down memory lane _please_.”

“Awh, c’mon Anna. Not in the mood for some OA? Orphans anonymous. We can compare notes on how much abuse we endured, it’ll be fun then we can head back to mine and inhale raw cookie dough batter till we puke. A typical Friday night in my books.”

Balthazar lifts the over filled shot glass to his lips.

“Gabriel, as much as it pains me to say this, do shut up.” He downs it.

“I don’t think that pained you at all” Gabriel downs his shot too. He shudders under the impact of it, the alcohol burning his insides. Castiel stares at his shot, unsure if he can stomach another one. He’s already had four.

Gabriel lifts it up to his lips. The strong smell he breathes in, his stomach flips.

“Down the hatch friend.”

“I can’t.”

“Oh, but you _so_ can.” Gabriel pushes it into his mouth. He takes it, easier to than risk getting it down his top. His face scrunches up, like sucking on a lemon. The assumption that it gets better the drunker you are is false. Tequila does not taste better. If anything, it’s worse as it adds to the sloshing pit of his insides that contains beer, bourbon and tequila. Mixing drinks, another plan not thought out well.

The first being spending the majority of the day with old memories. It’s hard for Castiel not to associate the adults in front of him with the children they used to be. The years had changed them all and yet seeing Anna’s red hair, hearing Balthazar call him Cassie and he’s ten years old again, broken and frightened and clinging to dreams that never came true.

They did for Anna. She’s beautiful and managed to be freed from the grasps of the nuns are twelve years old. Adopted and managed to have some sort of a childhood though everyone knows once you’ve lived in Heaven’s Little Angels you do lose a part of yourself in there. Her eyes would never be as bright as they could be. They sucked that out of you in there.

Balthazar, Gabriel and he had six more years without her. Some of the worst years. Anna would ask in the beginning, they would never tell. She got out and they refused to let her feel guilty about it. 

He feels a pain in his chest as other memories roam around his brain and decides to pour himself another shot. Drown them out, that’s what Gabriel did for years, seemed to have worked for him up until a certain point.

“Whoa, you guys made quick work of that bottle.” A familiar voice approaches. He looks up and sees Dean. He’s got bright eyes, not as bright as they could be either. Castiel needs to know why. What happened to Dean for his eyes not to be as bright. He sees glimpses of it, when he’s around his brother or teasing Castiel. In those moments the green is lighter, letting the goodness in and embracing it.

Dean coughs. He realises he’s staring and looks away.

“You manage to hear any of that or too busy undressing your neighbor here?” Gabriel teases. That gets a chuckle from the other two and a neck scratch from Dean. He feels the need to say he wasn’t doing that though that would not be believed.

“No, I wasn’t listening.” he replies.

“We were saying it might be best to call it a night.” Anna tells him.

“Before our inhibitions are so low, we actually _do end up_ talking about Heaven’s Little Angels.” Balthazar adds.

“Heaven’s Little Angels? Like the orphanage?” Dean asks. That’s right, Dean doesn’t know, not really. The story he told Dean omits the actual truth of their childhood.

“Bingo. Ten points to the stud in the lumber jack flannel.” Gabriel shouts like a game show host. He gets up out of his chair and stumbles ungraciously. Balthazar is out of his chair quick to lend Gabriel a hand.

“You’re alright my friend.” Their height difference more noticeable now Gabriel’s face is pressed against his friend’s chest for support. “It’s time for bed.”

“You need me to order an Uber or somethin’?” Dean reaches into his pocket to take out of his phone.

“Thanks Dean but we’ll be fine,” Anna stands, she’s steadier on her feet. “We’re staying with Gabriel down the road, though Castiel is going back to his place and if you’re his neighbor...”

“Yeah, sure, I can help Cas get home,” Dean offers. “You’ll be alright with those two?”

Balthazar and Gabriel are singing their way towards the door, a Hard Knock Life at the top of their lungs, brothers in arms. Gabriel has the tequila bottle in his hand.

“They’ll tire themselves out eventually, they always do,” she reaches up to kiss Dean on the cheek and reaches down to kiss Castiel too. “Goodnight.”

“See ya.” Dean waves her off.

Castiel understands he needs to get up but is finding trouble in getting up off of his chair. The likely hood of him being able to stand on his own are slim.

“How drunk are you man?” Dean crouches down beside him, hand on his thigh. Its warm, Dean’s whole body is warm and nice and Castiel appreciates it in so many ways. He notices Dean’s laughing. “I mean good to know you think I’m warm and all Cas, but I personally think hot might have been a better description, but I’ll take what I can get.” Castiel blushes, his internal monologue is slipping out into the world, something he has spent years mastering. The tequila is definitely lowering his inhibitions like Balthazar said.

He keeps his mouth shut. 

“You think you’ll be alright on your own for a few minutes cause I gotta grab my jacket?” His voice is faint to Castiel, like way off in the distance. Dean moves his hand to stand back up. The warmth leaves him. He misses it, he doesn’t want the cold, hates the cold, spent too much of his life in the cold.

Castiel reaches for his arm, grips it tight. He doesn’t want to be left alone in the cold.

“I’ll be right back Cas, promise.” Dean assures him. He believes him and let’s go. He can be alone for a few moments on his own in his drunken state.

As the time passes it becomes harder to not let the coldness come back into him.

* * *

Deans dealt with enough drunk people in his almost 30-year life on this earth to understand the mechanics of it, hell, he’s been drunk enough to know the mechanics of it. The limbs that don’t want to work in the way you want to, the head spinning, the room spinning, just many things spinning and feeling out of control as you attempt and fail to hold on. Yeah, he’s been there and looks like Cas is there too.

Ellen lets him off before official closing when he explains the situation, leaving out some intimate details he says that his neighbor is too out of his head to make it back on his own and his friends had ditched him. Leaving out the fact that Dean had offered and a part of him wants to make sure Cas gets home safe and doesn’t choke on his own vomit before he gets a chance to choke on Dean’s dick. There are selfish motivations lurking in there he aint gonna deny it. Cas in tight t-shirts needs to be outlawed effective immediately.

The guy is quiet as he uses Dean as a support system to get him out of the bar, around the back to Baby. Dean’s got Cas’ jacket in one hand and Cas in the other, arm wrapped around his waist to hoist him up every few steps.

“Almost there, buddy.” He says.

Cas doesn’t respond. He’s walking and breathing, that’ll do Dean for now till they get back.

He maneuvers Cas into the passenger seat. Cas hand reaches out for him almost afraid that Dean is going away somewhere. That look of panic across his face, eyebrows furrowed. The same look when Dean left him in the bar.

“Just getting in the other side Cas, not going anywhere.” He assures him.

“Promise.” The first word since his friends left him. That’s not concerning at all.

“Promise,” Cas’ hands slip through the fabric of Dean’s jacket and land back by his side. Dean dives to the other side of the car, almost debates sliding over the bonnet to get their faster. He hops in and closes the door behind him. “See? Right here.” He shoots a smile across. Cas doesn’t return it, instead falls into the space between them, half of his head resting on Dean’s lap.

This is not the situation Dean had envisioned when thinking about Cas’ head in his lap in his car. He looks down, sees Cas’ eyes closed, still breathing.

“You better not puke.” He mutters and starts up the engine. It’s a quick drive to their place and when he’s on the road he runs a hand through Cas’ hair as he winds through the empty enough streets of his home town.

Drunken Cas in a lift is no fun but he manages it. He also manages getting the keys from Cas’ pocket, careful to avoid making this sexual as Cas is too drunk to even understand the word of consent. With the total weight of the man nearly on Dean he switches on the lights to Cas’ apartment and makes a beeline for the bed to drop him on. He lands on it, unscathed and Dean can breathe again.

“Home at last, eh Cas?” he asks. Cas grumbles something. “What was that?”

Cas doesn’t clarify. He’s content with leaving his neighbor to his own devices while he grabs a glass of water, a bowl (just in case) and fishes out what Dean presumes are pajamas from one of Cas’ drawers. He lets out a laugh. Yesterday Cas had put Dean into his pajamas and tonight Dean’s putting Cas into it in a completely non-sexual way. It feels like they’re doing everything backwards. Domesticated already.

Getting Cas out of his clothes is a struggle. He’s dead weight and refusing to budge.

“Work with me here.” Dean huffs as he shimmies Cas’ jeans down, taking his socks with him. Cas grumbles again, this time he hears it.

“I’m cold.”

“Yeah, well if you get these damn pajamas on I can burrito you with that duvet of yours.” He throws the top over Cas’ face. Cas pulls it off, suddenly alert.

“You have a burrito?”

“No Cas, I…just put your top on.” He puts his top on begrudgingly. Dean sighs. If this had been Sam, he would have shoved him under the shower to snap the sober back into him. His patience wearing thin at this stage. He gets Cas’ pajama bottoms up and turns down the duvet hoping Cas takes the hint to get in without instruction.

Cas looks vacant though, like he’s off in a distant memory and not a good one. His blue eyes unblinking, hands holding onto the hem of his shirt like he forgot to let go once he put it on.

“Cas?”

He doesn’t reply. Dean leans over him to meet his eyes. “Cas.”

The blue eyes move, meeting his. “There you are.” He smiles.

“Dean.” Cas replies, as if he hadn’t been with him all this time, as if he hadn’t seen him in years. His hand reaches up to touch Dean’s face, his cold palm brushes Dean’s stubbled cheek. It’s so soft and tender. Dean’s gut twists, he’s not used to touches like that. Touches that reach further than his skin. He lets out the breath he’s been holding, it flutters Cas’ lashes. He wants to sink into this bed with Cas, but Cas is drunk, and Dean won’t do it. When he does it, if he lets himself do it as soft and tender as Cas’ touch, he wants Cas to remember it too. He leans back.

“C’mon, in you get,” He gestures for Cas to move. Cas does, crawls to the space where the duvet is pulled back and lets Dean drop the duvet over him. “Got you a glass of water, a bowl, think you’re all set.” Dean says. He’s about to say goodnight when Cas’ hand reaches for his.

He feels Cas pulling him slightly. Ah hell.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea man.”

“You promised me you weren’t going anywhere.” He hears Cas mutter. He sighs, scratches the back of his neck debating this in his mind. Cas is drunk, really drunk but there is something else that seems to be going on with his neighbor too. That thousand-mile stare, that heaviness in his heart that’s exposed and he’s wearing on his sleeve since his friends left the bar.

Is it that he doesn’t want to be alone or he can’t be alone right now? Dean’s been there, more times than he cares to count.

Cas is pulling and he’s going with him. Dammit he’s totally going to hell for this, solely based on the fact that Cas is too drunk to register the significance of what he’s asking.

“Alright, fine. Scoot over.” He sits on the edge of the bed to take his boots off. Cas shuffles back, still under the duvet. Dean remains on top of it, fully clothed as a compromise to himself. This feels less guilty. He’ll stay till Cas drifts off, shouldn’t take too long considering his eyes are closing already.

Cas waits while Dean settles down then shuffles back, pressing his front along Dean’s side. The duvet keeping them apart. He sees Cas is shivering. Without thinking too hard about it, Dean lifts an arm for Cas to sneak in under it and rest his head on Dean’s chest. It’s nice, real nice.

“Why can’t you be sober right now?” Dean looks up at the ceiling.

“You keep the cold out of me Dean.” Cas says. It’s not the answer to the question, he’s off somewhere else again. Somewhere cold.

“I got you buddy.” Dean replies, hoping Cas hears it. He feels Cas press a kiss to Dean’s chest and he has to close his eyes out of fear that he’ll do something he’ll regret if he looks down.

He’s going to hell but the longer he stays with Cas the more ok he is with it.

* * *

In the night Castiel has to get up to puke. He doesn’t know how he got back to his apartment, how he’s in his pajamas or anything really past Gabriel making him down a shot of tequila. He registers he’s pressed up against Dean though. If he didn’t have to puke as intensely as he did, he’d stay snuggled up to him, but the tequila is coming up fast and Dean smells like the Roadhouse which isn’t helping things.

He manages to do it without waking Dean up. Castiel stumbles around in the dark, finding the bathroom light and dropping his knees to the tiled floors to heave up the tequila that is sloshing around in his stomach. His throat stings but his stomach will thank him later for it.

Castiel fumbles back to the bed. Dean stirs.

“Cas?”

“Go back to sleep Dean.” Castiel pulls the covers back over himself. Dean mumbles an ok or a fine, Castiel isn’t quite sure. The street lights from outside cast an orange glow on Dean. His features softened in the glow, his mouth a little parted to breathe. Castiel wants to curl back up into Dean, debates it in his mind till Dean lifts an arm up like he can read Castiel’s thoughts.

His heart tightens at the simple gesture, slots in where he was when he woke up.

“Gotta keep you warm.” Dean mumbles into his hair. Castiel isn’t quite sure what he means by that, he’s not cold, if anything his pajamas are unnecessary with the duvet and Dean. The evened breathes of Dean refrains him from asking what he meant by that. He drifts off back to sleep.

* * *

He stirs awake again, this time in the morning, sun coming in lighting up his apartment. His hangover is brewing under the surface. Dean’s breath is slow and steady on his hair, still asleep or dosing Castiel can’t be certain. He tries not to move, enjoying the closeness.

Some memories are being pieced together in his mind, Dean carrying him to his car, a hand in his hair, something about burritos that he will make sure to eat at some point today if he gets the chance to. There is a Mexican place near his apartment, not as good as the truck at college but would suffice to fill his craving.

Memories of before last night are also roaming around in his mind, nights spent shivering under the thin blankets of the orphanage as the rain dripped in through the faulty window beside Castiel’s bed. A flashback of Balthazar mentioning Heaven’s Little Angels comes into his mind, Dean is in it. He must have heard. He wonders if Dean will bring it up. Wonder if he should be the one to bring it up. He is unsure if he wants to dredge up those memories, left them in a box buried in his mind for a reason.

“Mornin’” Dean says voice still filled with sleep.

“Good morning Dean.”

His neighbor stretches, arm coming off of Castiel back and reaching up. Castiel puts his head back onto the pillow next to him and off of Dean’s chest. It’s cold and he immediately wishes to be back in Dean’s embrace. He doesn’t ask though.

Dean rubs his eyes taking the sleep out of them. “Man, were you drunk last night.”

“Yes,” Castiel feels the guilt brewing with his hangover. “I’m sorry you had to mind me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he swings his feet over to the edge of the bed. “Not my first time looking after a drunk.” Castiel hears his voice trail off, like a memory has entered his mind. He shakes it off quickly. “Anyway, how about some coffee?”

“Coffee would be nice.”

Dean gets up from the bed and pads over to the kitchen. He stretches again, scratches the back of his head. Castiel joins him, his movements less sure, his stomach slightly churning from his hangover. He sits down at the table, holds his head up with his hands. Dean chuckles in his direction.

“You look like shit, Cas.” He admits.

Castiel nods. No point denying it. He feels like it too.

“Was it worth it though?” Castiel squints his eyes at Dean unsure of that question. “Being with your buddies, drinking, reminiscing about the good ole days.”

Dean makes them coffee. He plants the steaming hot mug in front of Castiel but remains leaning against the counter to drink his. Castiel is unsure why Dean is keeping his distance now they are both awake. They were enmeshed in each other during the night. He returns his focus to Dean’s question. Reminiscing about his childhood with those from it.

He brings the mug up to his mouth. Inhales the strong smell of coffee.

“I wouldn’t exactly call them the ‘good ole’ days.” He replied solemnly. 

“Shit, yeah the orphanage.” Dean scratches the back of his head again. Castiel has deciphered he does this when he’s anxious or aroused, often two emotions overlapped.

“Yes, the orphanage.” he takes a sip. There is a noticeable pause between them. Castiel is still between two minds divulging those details to Dean. He doesn’t want to burden him with them, nor does he want to bring them out into the open as Castiel is unsure how well he himself would cope with them. They have been sealed away for quite some time.

Dean moves to sit in the chair opposite Castiel. He looks serious. “Look Cas, you’re not the only one here with a shitty childhood,” Dean’s eyes drop to his hands. His voice quietens. “Mine wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows either.”

The heaviness that encompasses Dean is drastically noticeable. His shoulders slump, his head drops, his eyelids sag a little. His past wearing him like a blanket. Castiel reaches across the table, rests his hand on top of Dean’s. He watches Dean inhale sharply, like he’d been holding his breath. He exhales audibly and says,

“When I came back here, after years of running away from this place I made a promise to myself to not look back, only forwards. Leave the bad where it belongs, only take the good.”

Those words echo for Castiel, words he has told himself over the years since leaving Heaven’s Little Angel’s. “I share that sentiment.” Castiel agrees. He gives Dean’s hand a light squeeze to show he hears him and lets it go.

Dean then lifts his mug up. Their eyes meet, blue and green, like forest lands and bright skies. Nothing dark or sad in them, light daring to shine through, if they’d let it. Castiel thinks they could.

“Okay, so let’s make a pact. From here on out, nothing but good times for us. Deal?”

Castiel lifts his mug, clinks it against Dean’s.

“Deal.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Sorry it took so long to update. You know how it is sometimes, life, pandemic, the usual stuff. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the adorableness of these two and the awesomeness of Gabriel ;) 
> 
> I have no more stories on the horizon either! Feel free to have a look at my other ones and indulge in more Destiel magic. 
> 
> Take care you wonderful readers x


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